Barbell · intermediate · waist
Barbell viking press trunk rotation
Also called Landmine viking press, Viking press, Rotational landmine press.
An anchored barbell carries a two-handled attachment on its loaded end. You hold both handles at shoulder height and press the bar up and away, turning your trunk as it travels, then repeat toward the other side. The delts and triceps are what move the weight, with the triceps finishing the lockout. Your obliques turn you, which is where the name comes from, but this is a pressing exercise before it is anything else.
How to do it
- Step oneStand at a viking press machine and grasp the handles at shoulder height.
- Step twoPush the handles away from your body while rotating your torso in the direction of the press.
- Step threeReturn to the center and press in the opposite direction, rotating your torso the other way.
- Step fourMaintain a stable lower body and only rotate through the trunk.
- Step fiveContinue alternating sides.
What usually goes wrong
Each starts with what you would notice.
You put it in the session as an ab exercise and your shoulders are what is sore.
WhyThe bar goes up because your shoulders and triceps pushed it. Your obliques turn your ribcage while that happens, which is real work, but it is not what raises the load.
FixProgram it where a shoulder press would go and set the weight from what you can press. If your abs are the target, pick something that asks them to move the weight rather than change its direction.
The bar ends up across your body rather than up.
WhyThe turn has replaced the press. Rotating is far easier than pressing, so under load it is what happens first.
FixGet the arms moving before the ribcage does, and let the turn travel with the press rather than instead of it. If the bar finishes at the height it started, nothing was pressed.
One arm locks out before the other.
WhyBoth handles are on one rigid bracket, and turning your trunk puts one shoulder further from the bar than the other. The near arm finishes first because it has less ground to cover.
FixKeep the bracket level and keep the turn small. A large twist on a fixed handle guarantees an uneven press, and that is not something to work through.
The same plates feel completely different from one session to the next.
WhyYou are standing somewhere else. With one end fixed, how far your hands sit from that fixed point is what decides how much of the load you are actually pressing.
FixFind the foot position where the handles sit at your shoulders with your elbows down, and keep going back to it. Where you stand is part of the weight here, not a detail of the setup.
What it is for
The viking press trunk rotation is a rotational pressing exercise that targets the obliques and core through a combination of upper body pressing and thoracic rotation. It develops rotational power and core stability while also engaging the shoulders and traps.
Questions people ask
- What muscles does the viking press trunk rotation work?
- The delts raise the bar and the triceps finish it, with the upper chest contributing because the path is angled rather than vertical. The obliques turn your trunk, and your traps and the muscles around your shoulder blades move and hold the shoulder girdle throughout.
- Is this a shoulder exercise or a core exercise?
- A shoulder exercise with a turn in it. In strongman, where the viking press comes from, it is an overhead press event, and the professional descriptions of it treat it as pressing. The rotation changes the position you press from. It does not change what is lifting the bar.
- Does the bar go overhead?
- Not really. One end is pinned to the floor, so the free end travels on a curve that runs forward as well as up. Your arms straighten with the bar in front of your head rather than above it, and that is as far as the path goes.
- Do you need a viking press machine?
- No, and the demonstration does not use one. It is a barbell in a floor anchor with a two-handled attachment clamped onto the loaded end. A dedicated apparatus exists in strongman competition. This is not it.
- How do you pick the weight when you are also turning?
- Set it from the press, then take some off because you are turning at the same time. Rotating under a load you can only just move is how the turn stops being a turn and becomes a lurch.
- Does this build rotational power?
- That is the claim and nothing has measured it, for this movement or for any anchored press with a turn in it. What can be said is what it does: your shoulders press a load along an angled path while your trunk changes which way it faces.