The Rise and Fall of the Side Bend

Yes. This is an entire article about the history and development of the side bend.

No I am not running out of content but yes I am procrastinating my book on the history of women’s Olympic weightlifting.

At the very least, I can say that my procrastination is productive right? And, in my defense, a history of the side bend is much needed. What began as an exploratory trip down memory lane has pulled up some rather interesting observations. The side bend, you see, is one of the most enduring and respected exercises in the long history of physical culture. It has counted bodybuilders, powerlifters, and physical educationalists as its admirers for over a century.

What is a Side Bend?

Despite not having a degree in Kinesiology or Sport Science, I feel somewhat confident that I can manage an explanation of the side bend. Pick up a dumbbell, hold it to your side, and slowly slide it down, typically towards your knee, without moving your trunk forward or back.

And now to cover my ass. Here is a video. Blame them not me if anything happens!

The Early History

The first thing to say is that the dumbbell side bend has its origins in a much older lineage of gymnastic exercises and movements. While this post will be focusing primarily on the twentieth century, exercisers in the 1800s were encouraged to bend forward, backward and sideways in  a variety of manners. Mathias Roth’s 1856 Hand-Book of the Movement Cure, for example, makes constant mention of oblique flexion and extension of the upper trunk.

This continued into the age of physical culture (which roughly emerged in the 1880s). Carl Betz’s A System of Physical Culture, which garnered several editions in the late 1880s/early 1890s, described the side bend as follows

Step One: The body turns on its perpendicular axis as far as possible, without moving the feet.

Step Two: The body is turned back to the starting position.

It was typical for this movement to be done with no additional weight. Take, for example, the below image of Charles Atlas (taken from the amazing digital archive hosted by Rogue Fitness), which shows Atlas engaging in a ‘side bending’ exercise. This was taken in the early 1920s, after Atlas’ victories in Bernarr McFadden‘s best-developed man competitions.

But what about actual dumbbell side bends? One of the best-known instances can be found in Professor Atilla‘s Five Pound Dumbbell Exercises book, published in 1911. In it,  Atilla explains how ‘Exercise No. 16’, shown below, is performed

Hold the bells at the sides. Then bend from one side to the other…

This is a good exercise for a weak back and shoulders. To be done from 10 to 20 times.

The Heyday of Side Bends

The period 1930 to c. 1990 can certainly be seen as the heyday of side bends, predominately because everyone seemed to agree that they were a useful exercise. It is here where we turn to the wonderful website, The Tight Tan Slacks of Dezsco Ban, where a lot of the referenced articles come from. What individuals did not necessarily agree upon, however, was how to perform the side bend.

And before anyone asks… they all agreed on how to bend. Rarely has a movement been so simple. What they differed on was what equipment and rep scheme should be used. Writing in 1951, Bob Hoffman opined that

Seldom are these side muscles developed to the maximum strength of which they are capable. Most body builders perform one of two popular side-strengthening exercises. The side-to-side bend with one heavy dumbell, or the side-to-side bend with barbell on the shoulders

Hoffman had been advocating for barbell side bends since at least 1941, when he published his Simplifed System of barbell training. This method was so popular that the barbell side bend was included in the US Air Force’s 1956 book on physical training.

Hoffman, of course, was an Olympic weightlifting aficionado above all else. What about others in the Iron Game? Mark Berry (likewise a weightlifter) supported dumbbell side bends and overhead dumbell side bends in 1941. The idea of doing side bends with the weight overhead was commonly refereed to as the ‘Saxon Side Bend.’ Harry Paschal, a writer for Hoffman’s Strength and Health magazine, promoted the use of heavy side bends with a dumbbell

 By using a fairly heavy dumbbell, you can build great strength here. Some men have used more than 100 pounds in this exercise. It is a good conditioner as well as a strength-builder.   

These men were all weightlifters/strength sports promoters. It is important to note that bodybuilders were likewise in favor of it. The legendary Reg Park, who was Arnold Schwarzenegger’s role model, cited side bends as a great way to tighten the abs and hips in the 1950s. Likewise, Alan Stephen, the 1946 Mr. America, encouraged trainees to do 30-plus repetitions of the side bend with a dumbbell.

Over time it is clear that the idea of doing many reps with a dumbbell was the preferred movement for bodybuilders and strength enthusiasts alike. In 1970, John McCallum, whose ‘Get Big’ drink continues to impress me, recommended three sets x 50 reps of the side bend. ‘Builder of Champions’ and Mr. Olympia co-founder, Joe Weider, promoted sets of 15 reps minimum by the 1980s. By 1990, side bends with a dumbbell, for relatively high reps, was promoted for businessmen, aging trainees, bodybuilders, and everyone in between.

The Fall From Grace

Brett Contreras, the man who helped to popularise the barbell glute thrust, published one of my favorite articles nearly a decade ago. Titled ‘You Should Definitely Avoid This Movement,’ the article details a then-growing trend of avoidance in the fitness industry. Stemming, in part, from the rise of new exercise science communicators, and the functional fitness movement, this trend was categorised by a new flurry of articles and reports demonizing seemingly traditional exercises as dangerous, if not outright worthless.

As the article laid out, and it was by no means exhaustive, everything from leg curls to face pulls was put on an avoid list by some eager coaches. Side bends were one of the ‘victims’ of this trend. Part of this was likely practical – people often performed the exercise poorly and part of it was likely due to the industry’s fickleness.

On this latter point, it is worth pointing out that the side bend fell out of fashion around the same time that planks, and side planks, were growing in popularity as ‘functional’ ab movements. There was also a growing call that spot reduction didn’t work and that training the obliques may make the hips and waist appear thicker, rather than trimmer.

Writing in Iron Man magazine in 2013, Stuart McRobert (whose own fame stemmed from his creation of Hardgainer magazine in 1981), attempted to get people to focus on the exercise’s use as a supplement to strength work but this was largely an isolated opinion. More common was the idea that this movement would not remove love handles, nor would it prove particularly effective at training the obliques.

John Rusin’s 2015 T-Nation article on the ‘Four Dumbest Ab Exercises,’ described the side bend thusly

The loaded, standing oblique crunch made its way onto this list for one reason – being way too easy to butcher and thus becoming a dangerous component of a core development program.

The average gym goer has no idea what neutral spine entails, let alone being able to execute an acute range of motion targeting deep abdominal musculature. Before we start loading up movements and working towards intervertebral disc trauma one ugly rep at a time, how about we first master the basics?

This is still a pervasive line of thought. Just last year, in 2022, Men’s Health featured a piece that criticized the movement as potentially dangerous but certainly inefficient. While some continue to promote its use, the variations (barbell, overhead etc.) have largely disappeared and it is likewise rare to see people recommend it for heavy weights.

So What Gives?

Exercise preferences and patterns change dramatically within the fitness industry at the drop of a hat. While I doubt that anyone is mourning the side-bend’s relative fall from grace, it is fascinating to see how revered the movement used to be. Once promoted by both physique and strength trainees, the movement still exists but is one on the margins. Anecdotally (which is where all my best research is conducted), I see far fewer people attempting this movement than say, a decade ago.

What then, can we learn from the humble side bend? First, the rise of exercise science and kinesiology has impacted exercise selection in previously unforeseen ways. This process has been exacerbated by the rise of online blogs, videos, influencers, etc. While exercise scientists have previously demonized big movements like the squat, we have now moved on to smaller movement patterns.

The zeal with which people criticized and trashed various exercises in the 2000s and 2010s was, as Brett’s article made clear, too much. This brings me to lesson number two which is that no movement is likely as good, or as bad, as the fitness community makes it out to be. I cannot, and will not, comment on the scientific thinking about the side-bend’s impact on the spine as I am not qualified to do so. That being said, I have yet to meet any trainee whose injuries stem from side bends alone. Sure it may be dangerous but it’s likely not as toxic as some claimed.

Finally our perceptions of efficiency as a general training public have advanced rapidly thanks to those same online communicators. For several decades the side bend was promoted concerning vague comments about getting stronger or in good shape. What killed the side bend, in part, were references to time under tension, muscle patterns and pathways and full range of motion. That the training public, and more importantly coaches, are savvier when it comes to exercise selection is no bad thing.

Is the side bend dead and gone? Not yet, and I don’t think it ever will. Its reputation is, at the moment at least, at an all-time low in its century-long history.

As always… Happy Lifting!