Overhead Press Thread

[Hardartery]

My OHP sucks, always has as far as I am concerned. I know that I have some shoulder mobility issues, but that is a more recent problem I had amazing shoulder flexibility back in the day and still sucked at OHP. I am not discussing Jerks, but Push Press is in here too. What is the thinking on here?

To start, I know that I currently have the brute strength to OHP significantly more than what I would consider my current 1RM to be. What holds me back?
1. Shoulder flexibility - I can't get into position correctly to apply force effeciently
2. I suspect a deficiency in Ab strength, less noticeable in other lifts but starkly displayed in OHP.
3. Lack of comfort in general in a front rack position.

My guesses on what my weak points are currently. The actual weight being moved is irrelevant to the discussion as far as I am concerned, what are everyone's opinions? And I know that the Oly guys should have insight even though we are not discussing Jerks.

[DCR]

1. Shoulder flexibility - I can't get into position correctly to apply force effeciently
2. I suspect a deficiency in Ab strength, less noticeable in other lifts but starkly displayed in OHP.
3. Lack of comfort in general in a front rack position.

My totally unqualified thoughts:

If I recall, you do a lot of BTN pressing. My feeling is, the sooner in the movement that you can turn your regular press into a not-quite-BTN, the better. What I mean is, I would do everything possible to immediately get your head under the bar. I know that's standard advice for the lift, but I think that given your apparent comfort with BTNs, but shoulder flexibility issue with the regular press, it's probably an extra important point for you.

I think it's a sneaky skill lift, the skill being full body tension/coiling. Abs and glutes playing into that for sure. Speaking for me, if I fail, I fail right in front of my face, because I didn't explode fast enough off my chest. It's never an issue of getting halfway up and my delts or tris dying.

Regarding discomfort with the front rack, as fun as it is to press after cleaning from the floor, I think in your case you gotta start with the bar in the rack, push up to it with your chest, and then get your arms in / hands around the bar. In other words, when you step out, the bar is sitting on your chest ready to go, not in any sort of floating rack position where you'd have to pull down to your chest.

[mbasic]

I think its a skill motor pattern thing. I think skill is too lofty of a term to use.

That said, its something you might have to do 2 to 4x a week in some form or another, for a long fucking time, to increase it substantially.

[Hardartery]

1. Shoulder flexibility - I can't get into position correctly to apply force effeciently
2. I suspect a deficiency in Ab strength, less noticeable in other lifts but starkly displayed in OHP.
3. Lack of comfort in general in a front rack position.

My totally unqualified thoughts:

If I recall, you do a lot of BTN pressing. My feeling is, the sooner in the movement that you can turn your regular press into a not-quite-BTN, the better. What I mean is, I would do everything possible to immediately get your head under the bar. I know that's standard advice for the lift, but I think that given your apparent comfort with BTNs, but shoulder flexibility issue with the regular press, it's probably an extra important point for you.

I think it's a sneaky skill lift, the skill being full body tension/coiling. Abs and glutes playing into that for sure. Speaking for me, if I fail, I fail right in front of my face, because I didn't explode fast enough off my chest. It's never an issue of getting halfway up and my delts or tris dying.

Regarding discomfort with the front rack, as fun as it is to press after cleaning from the floor, I think in your case you gotta start with the bar in the rack, push up to it with your chest, and then get your arms in / hands around the bar. In other words, when you step out, the bar is sitting on your chest ready to go, not in any sort of floating rack position where you'd have to pull down to your chest.

I should qualify things. I have been doing some BTN, and I think it helps, but it is by no means comfortable or fun. It is thrown in specifically to force flexibility, it is more of a loaded stretch for me than a serious pressing exercise and I am unlikely to get it down to the traps at any point even with heavy weight. It still takes me until the third set of squats to get the bar down near my delts and it doesn't really sit where I want it until I hit 405 or so. I have improved things, I achieved torso contact on the first set yesterday in the front and that was requiring at least three sets of warmup muscle snatches before.

I am thinking something akin to heavy walkouts with a front rack position might help me, but I might be very wrong there. I don't like a floating rack, although I currently have one sometimes when things aren't warmed up enough. I have a hell of a time with Overhead Squats because I am not getting enough backwards rotation in the shoulders to carry the weight over the midfoot, I end up holding the bar in a forward position and doing a really ugly brute force thing. Which is unfortunate because I feel that Overhead Squats are probably the best core work in existence.

[Hardartery]

I think its a skill motor pattern thing. I think skill is too lofty of a term to use.

That said, its something you might have to do 2 to 4x a week in some form or another, for a long fucking time, to increase it substantially.

I am not able to get the elbows "Up" at all, and end up with a bit of a backward lean that looks like the old Press they used to do in Weightlifting, like a standing incline until I get really warmed up.

[mgil]

Do you do incline work? Front raises?

Getting the head through asap and transferring to the traps is good, but you gotta get the bar there first.

You talked about abs, I think that’s important also.

[Hardartery]

Do you do incline work? Front raises?

Getting the head through asap and transferring to the traps is good, but you gotta get the bar there first.

You talked about abs, I think that’s important also.

I am doing a lot of incline work, getting the head through is no issue. The bar is usually sitting too far forward at extension, by which I mean I doubt I could drop into an overhead squat or do effective full cleans. When I am completely upright, I have JUST enough rotation to be in the right spot, but not enough to accommodate any forward movement at all. Typically there is going to be some general forward tilt of the chest to make up for and I don't have it at the moment. I have not been doing any front raises in quite a while. I hit 325 incline last week, I would be doing a Push Press to overhead 225 most likely. I am missing something, and I would love to figure out what it is.

[quikky]

Do you have some kyphosis? It's a common enough issue that prevents a lot of people from comfortably or efficiently locking out a press, or doing overhead squats. If your thoracic spine causes the shoulders to rotate more forward, it requires either extra flexibility to compensate, which a lot of people do not have, or the need to lean back a bit.

If this might be your issue, I would suggest trying very high incline, about 75 degrees, seated presses instead. This allows the torso to lean back just enough to compensate for the forward shoulder rotation, while still being a vertical press. It's also a great movement in general, as it is more stable than a standing press, and really allows you to drive the weight with your shoulders and triceps.

[Skid]

My OHP sucks, always has as far as I am concerned. I know that I have some shoulder mobility issues, but that is a more recent problem I had amazing shoulder flexibility back in the day and still sucked at OHP. I am not discussing Jerks, but Push Press is in here too. What is the thinking on here?

To start, I know that I currently have the brute strength to OHP significantly more than what I would consider my current 1RM to be. What holds me back?
1. Shoulder flexibility - I can't get into position correctly to apply force effeciently
2. I suspect a deficiency in Ab strength, less noticeable in other lifts but starkly displayed in OHP.
3. Lack of comfort in general in a front rack position.

My guesses on what my weak points are currently. The actual weight being moved is irrelevant to the discussion as far as I am concerned, what are everyone's opinions? And I know that the Oly guys should have insight even though we are not discussing Jerks.

Are you referring to a strict press or one with stiff knees and some body English? How much weight are you pressing for a single? How about a vid? Hard to see if there are any issues without one.

How wide is your grip? I found that my best press was when I was a stiff as I could be. No slack anywhere; Solid shoes, weight belt, wrist wraps, suicide grip, body tense, narrow grip just at the edge of the knurling. And drive as hard as possible off the bottom.

[asdf]

What holds me back?

Where in the lift are you failing?

[Hardartery]

Do you have some kyphosis? It's a common enough issue that prevents a lot of people from comfortably or efficiently locking out a press, or doing overhead squats. If your thoracic spine causes the shoulders to rotate more forward, it requires either extra flexibility to compensate, which a lot of people do not have, or the need to lean back a bit.

If this might be your issue, I would suggest trying very high incline, about 75 degrees, seated presses instead. This allows the torso to lean back just enough to compensate for the forward shoulder rotation, while still being a vertical press. It's also a great movement in general, as it is more stable than a standing press, and really allows you to drive the weight with your shoulders and triceps.

No kyphosis. Seated presses are worse for me because of the lack of shoulder rotation, I can compensate on standing presses by having a slight backward lean. My press was never great, relatively speaking. I found that when I ws younger and competing the BTN stuff was a great accessory lift because it removed the pecs and anterior delts from the lift and forced me to rely on triceps and the rest of my delts. It also was roughly equal to my front press but pushed up the press numbers.

** So the missing information here is that I do now have bone spurs in my left shoulder and calcification. All as the direct result of a condition called Parathyroid Hyperplasia, which causes hypercalcemia which causes calcification of soft tissues and bone spurs among other long term problems. I am fortunate in that it was discovered and fixed (Surgery is the only option) before progressing to kidney failure and/or hear attack. It's a rare problem. I will likely have issues for the rest of my life from it, the lost shoulder flexibility is one of those things.

. The other point is, I would like to maybe do a Static Monsters show at some point, which involves Log Press. That is the least problematic OHP version for me, but I need some progress on the other forms to get anywhere with it.

[Hardartery]

My OHP sucks, always has as far as I am concerned. I know that I have some shoulder mobility issues, but that is a more recent problem I had amazing shoulder flexibility back in the day and still sucked at OHP. I am not discussing Jerks, but Push Press is in here too. What is the thinking on here?

To start, I know that I currently have the brute strength to OHP significantly more than what I would consider my current 1RM to be. What holds me back?
1. Shoulder flexibility - I can't get into position correctly to apply force effeciently
2. I suspect a deficiency in Ab strength, less noticeable in other lifts but starkly displayed in OHP.
3. Lack of comfort in general in a front rack position.

My guesses on what my weak points are currently. The actual weight being moved is irrelevant to the discussion as far as I am concerned, what are everyone's opinions? And I know that the Oly guys should have insight even though we are not discussing Jerks.

Are you referring to a strict press or one with stiff knees and some body English? How much weight are you pressing for a single? How about a vid? Hard to see if there are any issues without one.

How wide is your grip? I found that my best press was when I was a stiff as I could be. No slack anywhere; Solid shoes, weight belt, wrist wraps, suicide grip, body tense, narrow grip just at the edge of the knurling. And drive as hard as possible off the bottom.

That is exactly what my default press is, I would have been a terrible Oly lifter. I typically grip with pinkies inside the rings, which is the grip that has historically been the best for me. It also translates well to the grip width on Log. I would estimate my 1RM to be maybe 250 right now, with a push. I haven't tried to max in quite a while. My lifetime PR is 305, on the Axle and I think standard bar as well. I am not near there right now.

[Hardartery]

What holds me back?

Where in the lift are you failing?

It leaves the rack position or it does not, so far I make what I try but being in position for the lift and making measureable progress are both elusive.

[asdf]

What holds me back?

Where in the lift are you failing?

It leaves the rack position or it does not, so far I make what I try but being in position for the lift and making measureable progress are both elusive.

Okay, that makes sense. Because that's where everyone fails. But much of the discussion has been about your shoulder limitations and their effect on your overhead position and lockout, so I was just making sure that you weren't somehow failing at the top.

[quikky]

Do you have some kyphosis? It's a common enough issue that prevents a lot of people from comfortably or efficiently locking out a press, or doing overhead squats. If your thoracic spine causes the shoulders to rotate more forward, it requires either extra flexibility to compensate, which a lot of people do not have, or the need to lean back a bit.

If this might be your issue, I would suggest trying very high incline, about 75 degrees, seated presses instead. This allows the torso to lean back just enough to compensate for the forward shoulder rotation, while still being a vertical press. It's also a great movement in general, as it is more stable than a standing press, and really allows you to drive the weight with your shoulders and triceps.

No kyphosis. Seated presses are worse for me because of the lack of shoulder rotation, I can compensate on standing presses by having a slight backward lean.

Yeah, that's why I was suggesting a 75 degree or so seated press. You would be sitting with a bit of a lean, which would allow you to more stably press. The idea is to push with your feet on the ground into the back of the seat, and to have the small decline from vertical compensate for any shoulder inflexibility issues. Essentially, what'd you're probably doing standing, but with more stability. 75 degrees has the lean built in.

[MikeMullany]

From a programming perspective, I’ve always found this helpful for me. I am not a strong presser at all (or strong at all for that matter) but I’ve always been able to PR my press when I run this. It was taken from the old Power and Bulk forum.

duane hansen pressing

There are a couple of ways to approach your training if you decide to specialize in the press. One constant, though, is that you need to press a lot of barbells overhead. Even if you are a naturally-strong presser and press very strictly, technique is important. You need to learn how to set up (so that your entire body is strong and ridged) and you need to learn the correct groove. The groove (or the bar path or your form; whatever) is arguably the most important for a lift like the press. When you press, you start with the barbell 4-5 feet away from your feet and there is no support (like a bench) in between. As the bar goes up, you increase the distance. What this means is that the barbell will feel heavier (because it is more unstable) as soon as you start moving it and it will feel increasingly heavier until you lock it out. The take-home lesson here is that you need to make your body strong before the bar leaves your shoulders.

After you have learned how to brace your body and push against the barbell, a good way to train is just to do a lot of singles with a heavy weight. You could do a lot worse than the 20-rep program that was stolen from Bill Starr:

Start with a light weight. Press it for 5 singles (rest about 1 minute between sets).

Add 10 pounds (or 5kg) to the bar and do another 5 singles.

Add 10 pounds (or 5kg) again and do 5 singles.

By now you have done 15 singles with some easy weight. Now,

Do several (4-6) singles; add 5-10 pounds (2.5-5 kg) to the barbell before each of these singles. By the end of this scheme, you will have done a lot of reps with medium weights and worked up to a fairly heavy single. The trick is that you should repeat this workout in a few days but start with a barbell that is 5 pounds (or 2.5kg) heavier. Over time you will start with a heavier weight and finish with a heavier weight, but you will also get a lot of practice with pressing heavy weights.

When you are working on pressing a heavier weight, you should also be working on the other things that make you strong. In general, this would be squats and deadlifts, plus power cleans and power snatches. If you can stronger with these lifts you will be stronger everywhere, including how much you can press.

I moved my press up from the 80-90kg range to 110kg in a few months. I am not naturally good at pressing, so I was pleased with this result.

My advice would be to use the 20 rep (singles) approach every other day. Practically, this means Monday, Wednesday and Friday. This is what I would do, because those are the best days to get into the gym. On the other days of the week, however, I did even more pressing. The barbell never got as heavy as the top singles on MWF, but I did do a lot of sets with a weight around 80-90% of what I had done the day before.

My thinking in training the press is:

1) the press can be trained every day (and more than once/day)
2) half of the time you should focus on just pressing the barbell (i.e., take it out of the rack, set up and press for a single rep).
3) the other half of the time it pays off to clean the barbell first, then press.
4) train the squat and the deadlift as often as you train the press. Very few of these workouts (squat & deadlift) will be really hard, but the volume adds up.

Some more ideas and experience about training the press :

a) I would leave a barbell weighing 60-70kg sitting on the squat stands in my garage; as often as I would wander past and have a few minutes to spare, I would do several singles in the press. This way I could add 50-100 more reps to the total amount of pressing that I was doing every week. This was a significant increase over the number of reps that I would do in my heavy workouts (70-90 reps). Adding the extra work with lighter weights did not seem to hinder my ability to push the heavy weights. The extra practice with pressing did seem to help.

b) It seemed to work well when I would clean & press the barbell on one day and press out of the rack on the other day. I started out by doing the 20 rep press schedule 3 days/week, followed by some decently heavy squats (usually 80-85% for several sets of 2-3 reps); the next day I would clean & press for singles, followed by power cleans for doubles and then deadlifts for singles. Over time I switched to power clean & press on the 20 singles days followed by deadlifts for singles. On the opposite days I pressed out of the rack and then squatted (maybe once/week I would work up to a heavy single in the squat, but the rest of the time it was still several sets of 2-3 reps with weights in the 80-85% range).

c) I also did power snatches several times during the week. The external rotation that you do when you snatch a barbell helped (I think) to balance all of the internal rotation that I was doing. You also can't really go wrong if you get a lot stronger in a lift like the power snatch.

d) The best assistance exercise that I found for the press was Floor Presses. This lift will make you stop at the bottom with your elbows at a 90 degree angle. If you pause at the and then press the weight back up it seems to transfer well to the press, since the sticking point in extending the arms will be when the elbows are around a 90 degree angle.

e) The next best assistance exercise that I discovered was standing incline presses.

f) If you want to press a big weight you will also need to have some seriously strong abs. I did heavy ab work every day.

To answer your last question, Nick, I would have to say that it depends. If you are pressing every day (alternating heavy and light, of course) you will probably have a pretty good idea how strong your are on any particular day. I would not plan on backing off every week, but I would certainly back off on the weight or volume as soon as I realized that this was not a day where I was able to lift that much. A scheme that will probably work is to work hard for two weeks (trying to add weight to the barbell as often as possible), then back off during the third week. This scheme is not written in stone, of course, but it does seem to help most lifters continue to make progress over the long term.

[Hardartery]

From a programming perspective, I’ve always found this helpful for me. I am not a strong presser at all (or strong at all for that matter) but I’ve always been able to PR my press when I run this. It was taken from the old Power and Bulk forum.

duane hansen pressing

There are a couple of ways to approach your training if you decide to specialize in the press. One constant, though, is that you need to press a lot of barbells overhead. Even if you are a naturally-strong presser and press very strictly, technique is important. You need to learn how to set up (so that your entire body is strong and ridged) and you need to learn the correct groove. The groove (or the bar path or your form; whatever) is arguably the most important for a lift like the press. When you press, you start with the barbell 4-5 feet away from your feet and there is no support (like a bench) in between. As the bar goes up, you increase the distance. What this means is that the barbell will feel heavier (because it is more unstable) as soon as you start moving it and it will feel increasingly heavier until you lock it out. The take-home lesson here is that you need to make your body strong before the bar leaves your shoulders.

After you have learned how to brace your body and push against the barbell, a good way to train is just to do a lot of singles with a heavy weight. You could do a lot worse than the 20-rep program that was stolen from Bill Starr:

Start with a light weight. Press it for 5 singles (rest about 1 minute between sets).

Add 10 pounds (or 5kg) to the bar and do another 5 singles.

Add 10 pounds (or 5kg) again and do 5 singles.

By now you have done 15 singles with some easy weight. Now,

Do several (4-6) singles; add 5-10 pounds (2.5-5 kg) to the barbell before each of these singles. By the end of this scheme, you will have done a lot of reps with medium weights and worked up to a fairly heavy single. The trick is that you should repeat this workout in a few days but start with a barbell that is 5 pounds (or 2.5kg) heavier. Over time you will start with a heavier weight and finish with a heavier weight, but you will also get a lot of practice with pressing heavy weights.

When you are working on pressing a heavier weight, you should also be working on the other things that make you strong. In general, this would be squats and deadlifts, plus power cleans and power snatches. If you can stronger with these lifts you will be stronger everywhere, including how much you can press.

I moved my press up from the 80-90kg range to 110kg in a few months. I am not naturally good at pressing, so I was pleased with this result.

My advice would be to use the 20 rep (singles) approach every other day. Practically, this means Monday, Wednesday and Friday. This is what I would do, because those are the best days to get into the gym. On the other days of the week, however, I did even more pressing. The barbell never got as heavy as the top singles on MWF, but I did do a lot of sets with a weight around 80-90% of what I had done the day before.

My thinking in training the press is:

1) the press can be trained every day (and more than once/day)
2) half of the time you should focus on just pressing the barbell (i.e., take it out of the rack, set up and press for a single rep).
3) the other half of the time it pays off to clean the barbell first, then press.
4) train the squat and the deadlift as often as you train the press. Very few of these workouts (squat & deadlift) will be really hard, but the volume adds up.

Some more ideas and experience about training the press :

a) I would leave a barbell weighing 60-70kg sitting on the squat stands in my garage; as often as I would wander past and have a few minutes to spare, I would do several singles in the press. This way I could add 50-100 more reps to the total amount of pressing that I was doing every week. This was a significant increase over the number of reps that I would do in my heavy workouts (70-90 reps). Adding the extra work with lighter weights did not seem to hinder my ability to push the heavy weights. The extra practice with pressing did seem to help.

b) It seemed to work well when I would clean & press the barbell on one day and press out of the rack on the other day. I started out by doing the 20 rep press schedule 3 days/week, followed by some decently heavy squats (usually 80-85% for several sets of 2-3 reps); the next day I would clean & press for singles, followed by power cleans for doubles and then deadlifts for singles. Over time I switched to power clean & press on the 20 singles days followed by deadlifts for singles. On the opposite days I pressed out of the rack and then squatted (maybe once/week I would work up to a heavy single in the squat, but the rest of the time it was still several sets of 2-3 reps with weights in the 80-85% range).

c) I also did power snatches several times during the week. The external rotation that you do when you snatch a barbell helped (I think) to balance all of the internal rotation that I was doing. You also can't really go wrong if you get a lot stronger in a lift like the power snatch.

d) The best assistance exercise that I found for the press was Floor Presses. This lift will make you stop at the bottom with your elbows at a 90 degree angle. If you pause at the and then press the weight back up it seems to transfer well to the press, since the sticking point in extending the arms will be when the elbows are around a 90 degree angle.

e) The next best assistance exercise that I discovered was standing incline presses.

f) If you want to press a big weight you will also need to have some seriously strong abs. I did heavy ab work every day.

To answer your last question, Nick, I would have to say that it depends. If you are pressing every day (alternating heavy and light, of course) you will probably have a pretty good idea how strong your are on any particular day. I would not plan on backing off every week, but I would certainly back off on the weight or volume as soon as I realized that this was not a day where I was able to lift that much. A scheme that will probably work is to work hard for two weeks (trying to add weight to the barbell as often as possible), then back off during the third week. This scheme is not written in stone, of course, but it does seem to help most lifters continue to make progress over the long term.

No rack in the garage, nor stands. It comes from the floor or it doesn't happen.
I can Floor Press 315 for reps. It does not seem to carry over in any way for me, at all.
I have actually done the things in this post, actually made the press worse. Not saying the suggestions weren't helpful for the intended guy, or don't help other people.
Of all the things that has helped so far, the suggestion in a different thread to try Muscle Snatches helped. It warmed up the shoulders and increased flexibility. My issue is not strength, I am theoretically strong enough to be OHP well over 300 lbs based on other lifts and accessories, it just isn't happening. So I guess a video next time I press is in order.

[Hardartery]

Okay, no press but I did a walk out with Clean grip. Forget what I said, apparently I can move a hell of a lot more off the shoulder strict than I thought. Hit me with info guys.

[Hardartery]

Okay, here's the current bright idea, let's call it a live human experiment. I am hoping it is an adventure and not a tragedy, we'll see if it works to my good or detriment.
I am planning on walking out the weight just like in the video and giving it a couple of hard shoves every week. The goal is for the shoves to go higher over time until it's an actual full press. I am open to suggestions on what I should be doing supplementally to improve the OHP. You can see pretty clearly where I currently fail.

[mouse]

I feel weird giving any kind of advice given that your bigger than me but from watching those clips:

From the side you look way too loosey goosey and leaned back. Yeah it's 315 but watch your feet when you shove it up. Especially during a strict press I have to consciously think about flexing the shit out of my quads... your feet should never move once they get set even if you lean back a bit and move 'around' the bar a bit...

From the back, again... it's 315 and I haven't touched 300 on a bar (OK, I only ever touched it on an axle) in a while but I don't dig your wrists. Looks like the bar is sitting too far back in your palm. At times I find it helpful to use a thumbless grip to keep my forearms stacked under the bar... consider wrapping them...

Maybe that's helpful, maybe it isn't...

Don't have much to offer programming wise other than I typically do all of my pressing volume as strict presses because I'm not a particularly explosive dude and need to be able to finish overhead with raw power most of the time, legs are just to get it through the 'easy' part...