Landmine exercises: the press, squat, row, twist and punch throw, and what the studies cover

A landmine is a way to anchor one end of a barbell: a small attachment on the floor, or a corner with a towel around the sleeve. The other end rises and falls in an arc around that anchor, so the weight moves up and forward, not straight up. That's a description of the equipment, not a study result.

This page lists five landmine exercises, links the guides that exist, and says what the landmine studies cited here measured, which is little. Where there's no landmine study, this page says so and doesn't guess.

Five landmine exercises

The landmine squat

In 16 men and 16 women, each squatting with a load of 30% of their body mass for five reps, the goblet squat produced more front-of-thigh activity and more downward force than the landmine squat. Women showed greater front-of-thigh activity than men in both squats, and the authors say sex differences should be considered in program design.¹ So with the same load, the landmine squat asked less of the front of the thigh. For front-of-thigh activity, the goblet squat is the one with that result. That's muscle activity over five reps, not what weeks of either does.

The press and the angle

The landmine press has its own guide. For what the pressing angle means, the nearest evidence cited there is a study of bench angles: in 30 trained adults pressing at 0, 15, 30, 45 and 60 degrees, the upper chest was most active at 30 degrees, the middle and lower chest most active flat, and the front of the shoulder most active at 60 degrees.² A landmine press isn't one of those bench angles, so read it as a related measurement, not a landmine result.

A landmine program, and a punch throw

• 16 weeks in volleyball players. 18 professional female volleyball players trained for 16 weeks, 9 with weights alone and 9 with weights plus landmine exercises, among them a squat to press and, in weeks 5 to 8, the kneeling twist for 3 sets of 12. Both groups improved on the deadlift and push-ups; the back squat reached significance in the landmine group only, and the countermovement jump improved more in the landmine group.³ That is one small trial in professional athletes, and the landmine work was a mix, so it doesn't say what the twist or any one exercise did.
• The punch throw, in boxers. In 14 boxers doing three landmine punch-throw variations with each hand (two seated, one standing) at loads of 20, 22.5 and 25 kg, most variations were highly reliable, the non-dominant hand being as reliable or more reliable than the dominant hand, and load and bar speed had very strong straight-line relationships.⁴ That measures how repeatable the throw is for tracking bar speed. It isn't a muscle-activity or a training result.

A landmine session

Practical, not a protocol from a trial. Anchor the bar so it can't slide, with a landmine attachment or a corner with a towel wrapped around the end, and check it before each set. Start with a light plate.

Stop each set one or two reps short of where you'd fail. (How to judge reps left.) The American College of Sports Medicine's 2026 position stand, which covers healthy adults, advises at least two sets per exercise.⁵ Add weight in the smallest steps your plates allow, one exercise at a time. Progressive overload has the logic. The row and the press fill the pull and push slots of a day; the shoulder workout shows where a landmine press can go.

Common questions

Do I need a landmine attachment?

No: a corner of a room with a towel around the end of the bar works, as the landmine press guide describes. As practical advice, not a study result: an attachment or a corner with a towel both work. Either way, check the anchor before you start a set.

What do landmine exercises work?

For the squat, the only muscle-activity study cited here found the goblet squat more demanding on the front of the thigh.¹ For the press, the nearest evidence is bench-angle data.² For the row, the twist and the punch throw, the studies cited here don't give a muscle-activity result, so this page doesn't claim one.

Is the landmine press better than the overhead press?

It's a different press. The landmine press page lays out the angle, and the overhead press has its own studies. No study cited here compares the two directly.

Can I train legs with a landmine?

The squat above is the landmine leg exercise with a study, and it asked less of the front of the thigh than a goblet squat did at the same load.¹ For leg days, the leg day workout has a full session.

If you'd rather not plan it alone

One bar and one anchor can cover a push, a pull and a squat, but how they fit with the rest of your week is the part a page can't do. Coaching is the version where your workouts are built around the equipment you have and the days you actually have, and a weekly call looks at the week you just had and rebuilds the next one. Coaching for strength explains how that works, and here's how to apply. Otherwise: at your next upper-body session, swap one row for a landmine row, 3 sets of 10, and write down the plate.