reckonerJM press
A triceps lift that sits between a close-grip bench press and a skullcrusher. The bar comes down toward your chin while your elbows travel forward, then you press it back up the same path. It is easy to get wrong, so learn it light.
Elbows forward, bar toward the chin.
- Pattern
- Arm isolation
- Trains
- Triceps
- Kit
- Barbell, bench, rack
- Loading
- A weight you choose
- Reckoner prescribes
- 3 sets of 10 to 15 reps at RPE 8
- Progression step
- 2.5 kg once the top of the range is clean
- Bar
- 20 kg
- Skill
- Technical
- Recovery cost
- Low
- Not prescribed if you have declared
- Elbow, wrist, shoulder
Muscles worked
How to do it
Set the safeties first
Set the rack's safety bars low enough that they never touch the bar at the bottom of a rep, a little below where your chest sits, so they only catch a rep that fails. Lie with your eyes under the bar and grip it a little narrower than shoulder width.
Unrack over your shoulders
Hold the bar with straight arms over your shoulders, not over your face, with your shoulder blades pulled back into the bench. Starting over the shoulders is what lets the bar come down toward the chin rather than the forehead.
Lower toward your chin
Let your elbows bend and travel forward toward your feet as the bar comes down and slightly back toward your chin. Stop a few inches above your upper chest, with your forearms close to your upper arms. The forward elbow is what makes it a JM press.
Press back up the same path
Drive the bar back up and out along the line it came down, until your arms are straight over your shoulders again. Using the same path every rep is what makes the reps comparable.
What goes wrong
Turning it into a close-grip bench
Tucking the elbows and lowering to the chest feels stronger, because it is a press you already know. That is a fine lift, and not this one. Let the elbows come forward.
Turning it into a skullcrusher
Keeping the elbows pointed at the ceiling feels stricter. The bar then swings to your forehead and the lift changes. Keep the bar close to the line of your chin and let the elbows travel.
Loading it before you own the path
The bar feels light next to your bench press, so adding weight feels sensible. The path takes practice to feel. Start light enough to make every rep look the same, and add weight once it does.
How Reckoner progresses this lift
Six weeks of this lift, from 30 kg, run through the real engine. Nothing below was typed in: the prescription, the decision and the sentence beside it all come from the same code that writes your week.
| Week | Prescribed | What it did |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 x 10 at 30 kg | More reps 10 → 11 repsYou finished every set with three reps left in the tank (RPE 7) and room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 2 | 3 x 11 at 30 kg | More reps 11 → 12 repsYou finished every set with three reps left in the tank (RPE 7) and room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 3 | 3 x 12 at 30 kg | More reps 12 → 13 repsYou finished every set with three reps left in the tank (RPE 7) and room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 4 | 3 x 13 at 30 kg | More reps 13 → 14 repsYou finished every set with three reps left in the tank (RPE 7) and room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 5 | 3 x 14 at 30 kg | Deload 40% of sets offFive weeks of building, then one week lighter. About 40% of the sets come off. The load holds and your reps stay where you earned them, so you keep the strength and lose the fatigue. |
| 6 | 2 x 14 at 30 kg | More reps 14 → 15 repsYou finished every set with three reps left in the tank (RPE 7) and room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. The lighter week is over, so this is back to three sets. |
Real engine output, not an illustration. Every row was produced by running the engine itself when this page was generated.
The full rule, and why the reps move before the load does, is in how Reckoner decides to add weight.
Questions people ask
What does the JM press train?
The triceps. It is elbow extension under a pressing load, which is why it shares a group with the triceps extensions in Reckoner rather than with the bench press.
JM press or skullcrusher?
Both train the triceps. On a skullcrusher the upper arms stay still and the bar travels to your forehead. On a JM press the elbows travel forward and the bar comes toward your chin, a path partway between a skullcrusher and a close-grip bench press. Reckoner keeps them in the same group, so either can stand in for the other.
Will Reckoner put this in my plan?
Not by itself. It is easy to get wrong, so the engine never chooses it for you. Choose it in the lift picker or as a swap for a triceps extension, and it is loaded on the barbell's own steps. Elbow, wrist and shoulder are recorded against it.
Similar movements
Reckoner eases the load first when this lift stalls, and offers one of these only if it stalls again after that. A lift already as light as your kit goes has no load left to ease, so the offer comes straight away. Each of them has a page.