An upper-body exercise that hits your shoulders, back, arms and core in one go – while sitting down, with one dumbbell? Sign us up.

In a recent Instagram video, strength coach @strengthdebates demonstrates his version of the movement, which he’s dubbed the ‘Swole Press’.

He’s a big believer in heavy single-arm overhead pressing, but getting a sufficiently heavy dumbbell into position can become a limiting factor before your pressing strength does.

His solution is to start with the dumbbell on the floor and clean it to your shoulder from a seated position before pressing it overhead – turning the setup itself into a fundamental movement pattern.

How to Do the Seated Dumbbell Clean and Press

• Sit on the edge of a bench with your feet planted wide and a dumbbell positioned between them.
• Take a deep breath, creating pressure in your trunk and lean down, reaching for the dumbbell with one hand, squeezing the opposite fist to create tension on the non-working side.
• Explosively pull the dumbbell up onto your shoulder and sit upright.
• Take another deep breath, creating tension in your torso, then press the dumbbell into the air, locking it out overhead.
• Lower the weight under control to your shoulder, then to the ground.
• Repeat with the opposite arm.

Why it Works

‘Very few compound movements successfully combine strict pulling and pushing without at least compromising on the load you use for one of the movements,’ explains Men’s Health’s Fitness Director, Andrew Tracey. ‘An example would be thrusters: the maximum load you can press is going to be relatively light versus your max squat.

‘The angle from which you initiate the pull on this move, however, and the fact you cannot overly use your hips or momentum to assist, means neither the push nor the pulling section of this hybrid move are favoured, which allows you to stress both movement patterns equally.

‘Vertical pulling in this fashion also tends to be an undertrained quality, and while this variation is very bicep-biased (is that a bad thing?) this move ticks a lot of boxes you might otherwise miss in your training.

‘The movement being unilateral – working one side of the body at a time – it’s also great for addressing imbalances and building stability through the core and into the extremities.’

The Bottom Line

Combining a pull from the floor with a single-arm overhead press works your entire upper body, while your core has to keep you stable throughout.

If you’re looking to get more out of a single dumbbell – or simply want an efficient upper-body movement to add to your training – the seated dumbbell clean and press makes a strong case.

If there’s one thing Kori Sampson knows, it’s how to optimise your body composition for performance. To tap into his knowledge as an elite athlete and coach, we asked him to create a 4-week plan to help you move faster, recover quicker and keep pushing when the fatigue sets in – all while improving your muscle-to-fat ratio.

Ready to build muscle, burn fat and come out the other side looking, feeling and performing better? Click here to get 14 days of free access to the plan via the Men’s Health app.

With almost 18 years in the health and fitness space as a personal trainer, nutritionist, breath coach and writer, Andrew has spent nearly half of his life exploring how to help people improve their bodies and minds.    

As our fitness editor he prides himself on keeping Men’s Health at the forefront of reliable, relatable and credible fitness information, whether that’s through writing and testing thousands of workouts each year, taking deep dives into the science behind muscle building and fat loss or exploring the psychology of performance and recovery.   

Whilst constantly updating his knowledge base with seminars and courses, Andrew is a lover of the practical as much as the theory and regularly puts his training to the test tackling everything from Crossfit and strongman competitions, to ultra marathons, to multiple 24 hour workout stints and (extremely unofficial) world record attempts.   

 You can find Andrew on Instagram at @theandrew.tracey, or simply hold up a sign for ‘free pizza’ and wait for him to appear.