Forgotten Exercises: The Siebert Press

My name is Conor and I suffer from TBD. That is training boredom disorder. It is a serious condition that seems to impact 1 in 5 gym goers each month and at least 3 in 5 home gym owners each month. Other descriptions include ‘f**k around-itis’ or ‘spinning your wheels.’ More seriously, I get bored and try new things… a LOT.

My problem is that I am also a historian of fitness, so when I get bored, I tend to try exercises last used over one hundred years ago. That brings us to today’s post, on the ‘Siebert Press’ which, I am just so thankful to say, one kind individual has created a short video demonstration of. It is effectively a curl and press movement, done with a barbell, that works both the arms, shoulders and oblique muscles.

Who Was Siebert?

David Chapman describes Theodor Siebert (1866-1961) as ‘The Father of Athletics.’ Sibert moved from a sickly childhood in Germany to become one of the country’s most influential weight-lifting instructors of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As a child, Sibert expressed a desire for physical transformation, which ultimately defined his entire career.

From my youth . . . I was frail and puny, and this did not aid in my great desire to learn how to develop my body effectively

Originally starting with two 25-kilogram weights, Siebert progressed slowly and reached a milestone when he first pressed them simultaneously overhead! His interest grew from there. In 1898 he published The Catechism of Athletics and, just three years later, opened the first training school for German athletics and physical culture. While you may rightly state that German strongmen and women existed before this point (hello Saxons, Sandwinas, and Sandows!), Siebert was interested in helping the average trainee build strength.

The Catechism of Athletics itself is an amazing book (based on my rudimentary German). Effectively we can view it as a form of scientific or evidence-based training. It marked an effort to create a science of weightlifting at a time when many trainees and strength athletes were ignorant about how to build their bodies. One of the most comprehensive biographies of Sibert, which informed this article, had this to say about him

On the basis of numerous empirical experiments on themselves, athletes in the 1890’s gradually began to develop their own training techniques. Siebert combined the earlier, empirically tested training observations done by himself and others together with scientifically sound anthropometric information from physiologists

So in an age where every influencer seems to have their own training variation, I see no harm in trying out something from the 1800s.

How to Perform the Sibert Press?

Effectively begin with the barbell on the ground. Curl it up to the body and once, the barbell is at shoulder height, readjust to press it overhead. The below video does a great job of actually explaining what this looks like.

Why do it? From my own experience, I have grown so bored of bicep curls after roughly 15 years of doing the same movements. This movement, especially the press component, I’ve found to be a really nice tonic for the weight that I usually use. I will, however, caveat that I have only done this movement with kettlebells rather than barbells.

The reason for this is that the length of the barbell makes the balance a really difficult component. The Kettlebell allows me to stay tighter and not worry about balance on top of everything else. Now the next issue some may raise is of course the weight. Most of us can press more than we can curl. I have found using a kettlebell, and using the non-active arm to stablise the active arm, does allow me to use a decent weight.

But, again, this is an arm movement so, as long as the weight is challenging the biceps, it isn’t an issue. The next question might be sets and reps. I have used 3 – 5 sets and rep ranges of 8-12. Because it is a biceps movement, I don’t see the value in lower rep ranges with heavier weights as the injury risk is too high for me personally.

I wouldn’t classify this as a ‘full body’ movement but it is certainly a ‘fuller body’ movement than the traditional bicep curl.

What do you think? Try it out and let us know!

As always… Happy Lifting!