English

A man performing a bench press.

Alternative forms

• benchpress

Noun

bench press ‎(plural bench presses)

1. (weightlifting) An exercise preformed by pressing the weight of a barbell away from one's body while lying on a bench.
   • 1974, Charles Gaines & George Butler, Pumping Iron: The Art and Sport of Bodybuilding, page 18.

     ...Nubret has pushed and pulled maniacally at iron while sustaining a diet that would explode an ordinary metabolism—doing for that renowned chest, for instance, forty sets of twenty benchpresses (pushing 210 pounds off his chest a total of eight hundred times every other day) […]

Translations

Verb

bench press ‎(third-person singular simple present bench presses, present participle bench pressing, simple past and past participle bench pressed)

1. (weightlifting) To press the weight of a barbell away from one's body while lying on a bench.
   • 1988, Frederick C. Hatfield, "Powersource: Ties that bind", Ironman 47 (6): 21.

     I went home and bench pressed 30 pounds more than I had ever done before.

Synonyms

• (exercise): bench

Derived terms

• bench (verb)

Related terms

• press

See also

• chest press
• press up