Arnold press: the dumbbell shoulder press that turns your palms on the way up

The Arnold press is a dumbbell shoulder press with a turn in it. You start with the dumbbells in front of your shoulders and your palms facing you, like the top of a curl, and as you press up you rotate your hands until your palms face forward at the top. On the way down the turn runs in reverse. Everything else is the dumbbell press on overhead press form.

This page covers the steps, what a shoulder press trains, what the turn does and doesn't have evidence for, seated or standing, dumbbells or kettlebells, the faults, and the sets. Where it sits in a full shoulder day, beside the raises and the rear-shoulder work, is on the shoulder workout.

How to do an Arnold press

1. Sit on a bench with the back set upright, feet flat on the floor, a dumbbell in each hand.
2. Start at the bottom: the dumbbells in front of your shoulders at about chin height, palms facing you, elbows in front of your body and pointing down.
3. Brace. Back against the pad, ribs down, a breath held.
4. Press and turn. As the dumbbells rise, let your elbows move out to the sides and rotate your hands so your palms face forward by the time your arms pass your head.
5. Finish over your shoulders with your arms straight and the dumbbells close together.
6. Lower and turn back under control, ending with your palms facing you and your elbows in front again. That's one rep.

The turn is part of the press, not a separate move at the bottom. If you stop to rotate and then press, slow the whole rep down until it's one smooth movement.

What a shoulder press trains

The shoulder muscle has three heads: front, side and back. A press works mostly the front and the side, with the triceps straightening your elbows. In 13 men experienced in strength training, each doing a set of 12 at 60% of their max, a seated barbell shoulder press produced the highest front-shoulder activity of the four exercises tested: 33.3% of a maximal contraction, against about 19 to 21% for the bench press, the lateral raise and the dumbbell fly.¹ For the side of the shoulder, the shoulder press (27.9%) and the lateral raise (30.3%) were both far above the bench press (5%) and the fly (3.4%). The back of the shoulder worked hardest in the lateral raise, at 24%, with the press at 11.4%.

A 2024 review of 33 studies ranked the exercises by the activity they produce in each head: the incline dumbbell fly came out on top for the front, the lateral raise with the arm turned inward for the side, and the pull-up and an inverted row on suspension straps for the back.² Activity during a set isn't growth over weeks, but the pattern is clear enough to plan with: a press is a front-and-side exercise, and the back of the shoulder needs a pull, such as face pulls.

Arnold press vs shoulder press

A claim often made is that the turn works all three heads of the shoulder, or works the front harder. No study has measured it. A PubMed search for this page found no study of the Arnold press at all, alone or against the dumbbell shoulder press. What the turn changes is the start: your elbows begin in front of you rather than out to the sides, and your upper arms rotate as you press. Whether that moves work from one head to another is untested.

So think of the Arnold press as a dumbbell shoulder press with a different starting position. The shoulder-press findings on this page are the closest evidence, not results for the Arnold press; whether the turn changes any of them is untested. Pick the version that lets you press through a full range with control, and keep the same one long enough to add weight to it.

Seated or standing

Seated with your back against a pad is the version in the steps above. In 15 healthy men tested at 80% of their max, the standing dumbbell press produced the most shoulder activity of four press versions, and the lowest max: about 10% less than the seated dumbbell press and about 7% less than the standing barbell press.³ Standing asks more of your balance and lets you lift less; sitting with your back supported lets you press more. The Arnold press works both ways. Seated is the simpler place to learn the turn, because your legs and trunk have less to do.

Dumbbells or kettlebells

The two small studies that swapped the weight for a kettlebell disagree. In 21 healthy college-aged students pressing one arm overhead at a quarter of their machine-press max, the dumbbell produced more front-shoulder activity than a kettlebell of the same weight, 63.3% against 57.9% of a maximal contraction.⁴ In 20 young men pressing one arm overhead while seated, at 6 kilograms and at 70% of their max, the authors found no significant differences in the muscles measured.⁵ Overhead, a kettlebell's weight sits behind your shoulder joint rather than in line with it, as the first study's authors point out, so the turn feels different with one. Learn the Arnold press with dumbbells; with only kettlebells, a plain one-arm press is the simpler choice.

Does it build the shoulders?

No training trial of the Arnold press, or of a shoulder press on its own, turned up in a PubMed search for this page, so the growth evidence comes from neighbouring exercises. The closest is a bench press trial: in 24 healthy men, ten weeks of bench pressing grew the chest, the triceps and the front of the shoulder more than in a group that didn't train, and the side of the shoulder grew least of the muscles measured.⁶ The side has its own trial: in 24 resistance-trained men and women over eight weeks, lateral raises grew it by 3.3 to 4.6%, with dumbbells or with cables.⁷

So the Arnold press fits a shoulder day as the press, with lateral raises or an upright row after it for the side and a pull for the back. If your week already has a lot of bench pressing, the front of your shoulder is getting work there too.

The common faults, and a fix for each

• Turning first, then pressing. The rep breaks into two moves. Start the turn as the dumbbells leave your shoulders and finish it as your arms pass your head.
• Leaning back. The press drifts toward an incline press. Keep your back on the pad and your ribs down, and lighten the dumbbells if you can't.
• Half reps. Bring the dumbbells all the way down to chin height with your palms facing you, and press to straight arms. The American College of Sports Medicine's 2026 position stand found strength was enhanced by training through a full range of motion.⁸
• Elbows drifting behind you at the bottom. In the start position the elbows sit in front of your body. If they swing back before you press, the turn has started too early.
• Racing the weights down. The turn back is where control goes. Take about as long to lower as to press.
• Pressing through something that hurts. Sore muscles the next day are normal; a sharp or lasting hurt in the shoulder isn't. Stop, and see a doctor or a physical therapist.

Sets, reps and where it goes

• Three sets of 8 to 12, stopping with a rep or two left. (How to judge reps left.) The ACSM's 2026 stand, which covers healthy adults, advises at least two sets per exercise.⁸
• First on a shoulder day, or in place of the overhead press. The same stand found strength was enhanced for exercises done at the beginning of a session. If you also do an overhead press that week, count both as presses.
• Count your weekly sets. The stand found muscle growth was enhanced by ten or more sets per muscle group a week. Count presses, raises and pulls separately, so the side and the back of the shoulder get sets of their own.
• Add weight in the smallest jump you have, or add reps first. A pair of dumbbells a step heavier is a bigger jump on a press than on a squat. (Progressive overload covers the options.)

If you'd rather not plan it alone

The Arnold press takes a session or two to learn; deciding whether it replaces your overhead press or joins it, and how many pressing sets your week can hold next to your bench, is the part a page can't do. Coaching is the version where your workouts are built around the days you actually have, and a weekly call looks at the week you just had and rebuilds the next one. Coaching to build muscle explains how that works, and here's how to apply. Otherwise: at your next shoulder session, do three sets of eight Arnold presses with a weight you can turn smoothly, and write down the weight.