Everyone talks about “International bench day,” but there’s nothing quite like pressing something heavy overhead. It’s just about essentially the most innate display of strength. When little kids wish to impress their parents with how strong they’re getting, they lift something overhead.
Most lifters should give you the option to press something relatively heavy overhead. When you can’t, it often means you’re missing the total use of your shoulders. Perhaps you possibly can’t move your shoulder through its full range of motion or possibly the stabilizing muscles of your shoulder blades and trunk can’t create stability to soundly produce force.
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The strict standing barbell press involves the shoulders, upper back, triceps, and even upper chest. It trains all the body to create a stable base to push from, but it might be difficult to steadily improve and progress tends to stall much sooner relative to other barbell lifts. That’s why it’s vital to know and use many alternative variations to assist proceed constructing muscle and strength. Listed here are eight overhead variations that can enable you impress mom, again.
Best Overhead Press Variations
Landmine Press
Sometimes, pushing weight directly overhead could cause more harm than good. It could be due to an injury or simply an absence of flexibility within the shoulder, triceps, lats, or wrists. The landmine press is exclusive since the pattern of movement is between a straight vertical and horizontal path.
This hybrid variety of motion gives most of the advantages of direct overhead pressing while reducing the joint angle which may be putting a dangerous demand in your shoulder.
When to Use It
The landmine press is great to make use of when recovering from injury and constructing back strength and performance from day off training. It permits you to still develop strength and muscle when you work to revive full function of the shoulders to press directly overhead.
It’s also an excellent variation to make use of when doing an intense phase of bench press training, because it won’t fatigue your shoulders excessively or affect recovery quite like straight overhead barbell pressing.
The way to Do it
When you don’t have a landmine holder, you possibly can wedge a daily barbell in any corner where it won’t cause damage. Load the bar and pick it up by the pinnacle (the top of the sleeve where you load the plates).
The landmine press might be performed with only one arm or each together. When you’re using two arms, cup the top of the barbell sleeve with each of your hands. Place the pinnacle of the bar near your sternum along with your torso leaning barely forward. Set your feet between hip and shoulder-width apart. Keep your elbows close and pulled in as you press. As your elbows lock with the bar almost on the crown of your head, shrug your shoulders up before returning the bar back to the starting position.
When you’re using the one-arm variation, grab the top of the sleeve with one hand and place the bar on the front of your shoulder. Stand and press the identical way, driving the bar forward and as much as lockout, followed by a shoulder shrug. Ensure that you retain your elbow in, so the bar stays in keeping with your shoulder throughout all the movement. Flaring your elbow will alter the pressing angle, reduce power, and shift stress to the joint.
Landmine Push Press
The push press is an excellent option to increase overhead stability with weights you couldn’t otherwise strict press. You utilize your legs to assist to drive the burden up in a push press, allowing you to make use of heavier weights.
But a typical barbell push press might be difficult to learn and to do efficiently. The landmine push press is less complicated for people to understand due to each the trail you drive the bar and the position of your shoulders relative to the bar.
When to Use It
The landmine push press is an excellent exercise so as to add every time your pressing progress slows or hits a plateau. The exercise might be included on either bench or overhead press days as a option to overload the pressing muscles with more volume while still moving relatively big weights.
The way to Do it
Identical to the landmine strict press, for those who don’t have a holder you possibly can wedge the bar in a corner and cargo it the identical way. Because using heavier weights is a selected good thing about the landmine push press, it’s best performed with each hands on the bar. Cup your hands and place the pinnacle of the bar almost directly in your sternum. Set your feet between hip and shoulder-width apart and flare your toes out very barely.
Brace your core and dip your knees as for those who were preparing to leap as high as possible. Drive your feet into the bottom and explosively extend your knees and hips as for those who were attempting to jump. Your heels will lift from the ground from this aggressive ankle extension, but keep the balls of your feet involved with the bottom — don’t actually jump into the air.
As your ankles extend, shrug your shoulders toward the bar. Attempt to make the bar fly off your chest out of your leg drive and shoulder shrug. Then, push along with your arms to increase your elbows. Let your heels touch back to the ground right as your elbows extend with the bar over the crown of your head. Control the bar as you bend your arms and absorb the momentum along with your legs and trunk as you lower it.
Bottoms-Up Press
That is the most effective, but most difficult, pressing exercises for shoulder and scapular function and stability. It’s often used as a rehab or “prehab” drill since it engages a lot of the postural muscles like those of the rotator cuff that stabilize and move the shoulder blade.
Balancing the bell the wrong way up trains you to seek out essentially the most stable path of motion and forces you to regulate the movement. Sometimes, the dominant muscles liable for pressing overhead are restricted by how well your shoulders are stabilized. Improve those muscles and you possibly can improve how much force you possibly can create.
When to Use It
These are great to do on deload weeks or on the very starting of a latest phase of coaching. You possibly can consider them as a developmental exercise to arrange the shoulders for heavier, more intense training ahead.
The way to Do it
The bottoms-up press might be done standing or sitting, but a half-kneeling position actually puts you in an excellent mechanical position to do the exercise. Kneel down with the kettlebell in a single hand and that side leg kneeling on the bottom, with the other leg forward. Squeeze the handle and switch the burden the wrong way up so the underside of the bell is facing the ceiling. Crush your grip to keep up the burden on this vertical position.
Move your elbow toward your center so your thumb is in front of your face and your elbow is at a right angle with the ground. Slowly extend your elbow as much as the ceiling and move your upper arm barely back to place it in line (or covering) your ear as you lock out overhead. Stabilize the burden overhead briefly before slowly returning back right down to your face.
Kettlebell Z Press
The Z press is a wonderful alternative for increasing the stress and demand in your shoulders and upper back without necessarily increasing the load used. Often you’ll see a lifter arch their spine or lean back during a standing overhead press because they lack the postural control and trunk or upper back strength needed to maintain their spine neutral while pressing.
Sitting upright on the ground with no possible leg drive or back support helps you are feeling any change in your spinal position, so you possibly can concentrate on stopping the issue. Pressing from the ground with the offset weight of kettlebells challenges your trunk and shoulder stabilizers in a way other exercises can’t.
When to Use It
Use the kettlebell Z press at first of a workout to warm up your entire shoulder complex. One or two sets with light to moderate weight is sufficient to get your shoulders moving freely without causing fatigue that might affect your fundamental training.
Adding it to the top of a tough pressing workout can also be an excellent option to add more volume, since you don’t need to make use of much weight or too many reps for the movement to be effective.
The way to Do it
Sit on the ground along with your legs straight while keeping an upright torso. Hold a pair of kettlebells along with your palms facing one another at shoulder-level. Exhale hard through your mouth attempting to force the air out of your torso to make it as narrow as possible. You must feel your ribcage drop down and the muscles within the front and sides of your torso, around your core, contracting.
Keep these muscles engaged to forestall your back from arching or your ribs flaring up as you press overhead. Keep your upper arms in keeping with your ears and rotate your hands palms-forward as you lock your elbows. Shrug your shoulders as your elbows lock before returning to the starting position.
Earthquake Bar Overhead Press
The earthquake bar is a bridge between training stability and increasing pressing power. The bar is designed to shake and swing, which engages the deepest and smallest shoulder stabilizers. Since it’s one straight bar, you need to use relatively heavier weights than you can with dumbbells or kettlebells.
When you don’t have access to an earthquake bar, hanging resistance bands from the ends of each sleeves of a typical barbell and attaching weight plates is an efficient alternative.
When to Use It
You possibly can consider this like a secondary lift which might be done right after a heavy overhead barbell press or bench press. Though you’ll use much less weight, you need to use an analogous weekly progression of set and reps that you simply’d use in your fundamental pressing lift. The instability will likely be the important thing difficult element to this exercise.
The way to Do it
Set the bar on a rack just as you’d do for a standing overhead press. Start with relatively light weight and progressively slowly add more as you are feeling comfortable and learn to regulate the movement. Grab the bar along with your thumbs just outside your shoulders. Angle your elbows just barely in front of the bar. Shrug your shoulders forward and as much as create a support for the bar, whether you will have the mobility to rest the bar on top of your shoulders or not.
Step back from the rack and set your feet hip-width apart along with your knees just barely unlocked. Wait until the initial swinging stops and pull your chin back (consider giving yourself a “double-chin”). Press the burden up slowly, keeping the bar as near your face as possible.
Once the bar passes the crown of your head, very barely push your head and sternum forward so your elbows lock overhead because the bar is directly over the bottom of your neck. Shrug your shoulders upward and stabilize the bar at the highest. Lower the burden by pulling your chin back and returning the bar to the starting position.
Snatch-Grip Behind-the-Neck Press
Often you’d only see Olympic weightlifters use this as an adjunct exercise, but it might be very helpful to anyone seeking to improve overhead strength or construct their upper back and traps.
The ultra-wide grip challenges your rear delts and upper back in a really unique way. When you start with relatively light weight and progress slowly, the snatch-grip behind-the-neck press can actually improve your shoulders’ working range of motion and strengthen the muscles and connective tissue that support good shoulder function.
When to Use It
These might be pretty difficult, so as an alternative of adding them as an adjunct exercise after heavy standard overhead pressing, take just a few weeks to prioritize the exercise by progressively working heavier as an alternative of performing the usual barbell overhead press. Do them as the primary fundamental lift on a pressing or upper-body focused day.
The way to Do it
Place a bar on a rack at your back squat-height (roughly upper-chest level). Walk under the bar and place it in your back as for those who would for a high bar squat. Unrack the burden and step back. Slide each hands out until your index fingers are generally outside of the knurl marks on the barbell (smooth rings).
Angle your elbows directly under the bar, keep your neck straight, and brace your trunk while keeping your ribs from flaring up. Press the bar while keeping it in keeping with the bottom of your neck until your elbows lockout overhead. Don’t let the bar sway forward or behind your neckline. Shrug your shoulders at the highest before returning the bar all the best way back to the highest of your traps.
Swiss Bar Overhead Press
The Swiss bar is the most effective tools to make use of for those who’ve had any shoulder or elbow pain, or pre-existing injuries. Its key profit is multiple handles that permit you place your hands close or wide while keeping a neutral-grip (palms facing one another) position.
This neutral position gives even those rotator cuff dysfunction a option to press without causing more strain in problematic areas within the shoulder or upper back.
When to Use It
The Swiss bar press is great to do when your shoulders, elbows, or wrists get cranky from other kinds of pressing. You should use the exercise rather than other overhead pressing options until you fully rehab an injury or get better from whatever nagging pain is causing issues.
The way to Do it
Determine which grip-width feels most comfortable use and set the bar on a rack, the identical you’ll for any overhead barbell press. Grab the handles and rotate the bar so your thumbs face toward your head. Unrack the burden and step back to your standard press foot position, roughly hip-width apart. Start with the bar about chin height.
Pull your neck in, as for those who were giving yourself a double-chin, and keep the bar near your face as you press overhead. Push your head barely forward as you lock your elbows overhead. Shrug at the highest as your elbows lock before lowering to the starting position.
Overhead Pin Press
A part of the rationale overhead pressing might be so hard to enhance is since you push from a static position, particularly on the primary rep. In lots of other lifts, just like the bench press, you will have the eccentric (lowering portion) of the lift which helps store force that you simply use to press the burden back up.
Since you don’t lower the bar first in an overhead press, you will have to give you the option to muster a considerable amount of force suddenly without momentum. This is named “starting strength” and a pin press is one of the effective ways to specifically train this quality.
When to Use It
When you can’t create a stiff and stable base of tension, you possibly can’t suddenly create this force. And for those who’re shifting your torso forwards and backwards as you press, you actually don’t have an excellent base of support.
Consider swapping all barbell overhead pressing for pin pressing until you improve this stability. Since the bar is supported on the safeties, you possibly can higher concentrate on setting your trunk and keeping it stiff and stuck in place as you push hard against the bar to lift it from the starting position.
The way to Do it
Set the bar on strong safety bars at the peak you’ll start your press from, generally around neck-height. Set your feet hip- to shoulder-width apart and grab the barbell along with your standard overhead grip. Get in position under the bar and brace your entire trunk and back so your ribs won’t flare up and your spine is locked in place.
Keep this static position as you press as hard and fast as possible, brining the bar to lockout overhead. Return back to the pins and let the burden settle there before re-bracing and repeating for one more repetition.
Muscles Worked by the Overhead Press
The overhead press is primarily a “shoulder exercise,” nevertheless it can’t be accomplished without assistance from several key body parts. Each of those body parts will likely be put under training stress in the course of the exercise.
Shoulders
Your shoulders (deltoids or “delts”) are the first movers in the course of the overhead press. These muscles are liable for flexing your arms overhead. The shoulder muscles consist of three heads — the front, side, and rear — that are involved in moving the arm in those respective planes of motion relative to your body.
All three muscle heads are used to press the burden overhead, but might be emphasized with various kinds of lateral raises.
Triceps
The triceps work to increase your arms, which is the latter portion of any shoulder press. The lockout portion of any overhead press, specifically, strongly prompts your triceps. (1) The triceps are worked through an extended range of motion during any overhead press variation, with the muscle recruited maximally in the highest half of the movement.
Core
Your abs and lower back work together to form a robust, stabilizing core which supports overhead pressing. Any degree of sideways or backward lean is prevented through strong core stabilization. (2) It’s common to feel sore abs after an intense overhead pressing session, which is one indicator of how significantly the core muscles work in the course of the movement.
Overhead Press Form Suggestions
Just a few key technique cues can turn your basic overhead press from pain into progress. When you’re performing the lift from an influence rack, set the safeties near shoulder or neck-level, not near your chest. Starting the press from a position that’s too low leaves you with poor leverage that shifts more strain to the shoulder joint than the shoulder musculature.
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During any press exercise, grip the bar as hard as possible. This may start a sequence response of strength out of your wrist and forearm muscles, through your upper arms, into your shoulders and upper back. (3) It’s a surprisingly effective option to stay tight while producing more power and minimizing joint strain.
Similarly, don’t get up “passively.” Before each repetition, flex your core, glutes, legs, and calves. Imagine gripping the bottom along with your feet. This may help to determine total-body stability to drive a robust upward press.
Press More Over Your Head
Bench press variations are fairly commonplace. Without giving it much thought, lifters are inclined to do way more horizontal pressing than vertical, but an excessive amount of horizontal work and never enough vertical pressing can lead you to develop deficiencies within the muscular development and control of all the shoulder girdle.
Learning and trying latest overhead variations not only increases the potential weights you need to use in your barbell overhead press, but additionally reduces the gap between these two pressing patterns making you much stronger and more balanced. Diversify your overhead training and reap the strength, stability, and muscle-building results.
References
- Kholinne, E., Zulkarnain, R. F., Sun, Y. C., Lim, S., Chun, J. M., & Jeon, I. H. (2018). The several role of every head of the triceps brachii muscle in elbow extension. Acta orthopaedica et traumatologica turcica, 52(3), 201–205. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aott.2018.02.005
- Shinkle, J., Nesser, T. W., Demchak, T. J., & McMannus, D. M. (2012). Effect of core strength on the measure of power within the extremities. Journal of strength and conditioning research, 26(2), 373–380. https://doi.org/10.1519/JSC.0b013e31822600e5
- Gontijo, L. B., Pereira, P. D., Neves, C. D., Santos, A. P., Machado, D.deC., & Bastos, V. H. (2012). Evaluation of strength and irradiated movement pattern resulting from trunk motions of the proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation. Rehabilitation research and practice, 2012, 281937. https://doi.org/10.1155/2012/281937
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