The present invention relates to a lay bar of a warp knitting machine, comprising at least one snail wire which is arranged on a driving element operatively connected to a driving device and at least one counter-force element (5), the counter-force element (5) having a piston cylinder structure in which a piston (10) connected with the driving element via a piston rod (6) is movable in the cylinder with a stroke length and can be loaded via a pressure medium. Stress variation in the driving element is desired to be small. For the purpose, the cylinder (9) extends beyond the stroke length to form a residual volume (12) to guide the piston rod (6) to pass through the residual volume.
