Get this exercise right and you’ll be well on your way to having boulders for shoulders!
Equipment you need:
Although the rack is optional, I really recommend it. Barbell Presses are one of those exercises that are best performed off the rack, not the floor.
Why?
Because you’ll expend way to much energy getting the thing into position before you even perform your first rep. No power cleans.
Check out the video first…
(1) Have the bar racked at about shoulder height
(2) Take a neutral grip i.e. wider than shoulder width
(3) Lift off the barbell and set it across your breast bone – where your pecs and neck meet
(4) Now take a couple of steps back
(5) Place your feet just slightly wider than shoulder width. Experiment with this; whatever feels most comfortable and sturdy is the right position for you
Tip – If you often rock about too much on overhead presses, you can have a staggered stance i.e one leg behind you, one leg in front
(6) Have your pelvis pushed forward and a BIG chest
(7) Now push the bar up, ensuring that the delts are doing the work
(8) Throughout the rep, stare forward. Don’t shift your head around.
(9) As you approach the top of the movement you want to push your head and torso a little forward and push the bar up and BEHIND your head. This is important.
(10) Now lower the weight in a slow, controlled fashion. Controlling the negative part of a rep recruits more muscle fibers!
(11) Lower to the starting point again. Do NOT bounce the weight off your chest. Have it lightly touch your chest before executing another rep.
Overhead presses work the whole shoulders and are SERIOUSLY effective. Your THT workouts should include them for the majority, if not all of your training cycles.
More vids coming soon!
Your buddy!
Mark McManus
Nice – this is exactly the right form for these. You see a lot of guys forgetting the slight push forward of your torso as the bar passes your head. I’ve also tried these seated, and you can still do the torso push but I have to reduce my poundage by about 10% when seated. But I prefer standing as I believe it recruits some stabilization muscles (abs and lower back).
It sure does mate.
Much more effective standing up in my opinion.
Cheers!
Nice tutorial duder!
Thick arms too.
B
Nice video Mark and good form. I hope all is going well with you partner. Also, I like to really focus on engaging my lats by imagining that I’m doing a pull-up.
All the best,
Muata
Hi Mark — I’ve a question about your grip. Is the bar resting on your palms or on the insides of your fingers? Your wrists look very flexed, which looks like it’s resting on the insides of your fingers, just above the knuckle. I ask because a guy at the gym earlier this week showed me that that’s how he does the press portion of cleans. I just came back from the gym where today was shoulder day and I started off with militaries trying to use that grip, but couldn’t do the same weight as I can when the bar is in my palm. Would appreciate your clarification. Thanks. — Chris
@ Chris. It’s resting on my palms. I can understand why you couldn’t lift the same weight; you wouldn’t be as ‘in control’ of the weight with it resting on your fingers.
It’s like I say in another post, maximum comfort is maximum strength. You’ve just proved to yourself that having the bar rest on your palms is better for you, in fact, it’s hard to imagine that ANYONE would feel stronger/more comfortable with the weight resting on their fingers.
Listen to your body my man.
Mark
Thanks, Mark. Really appreciate your help. — Chris
Hey Marc!
Great advice as always !
Is there a tip or another shoulder exercise to perform these without developing traps ? I really hate having traps (want to be square not triangular)…