Do This EVERY Time You Overhead Press (MORE STRENGTH!)

If you perform the overhead press for your shoulders and are looking to build more strength on the exercise, then you are going to want to watch this video. The key to any movement done for strength is to make sure your bar path is efficient. While inefficiency may serve you well when you are attemp

So, when you re pressing our head,  do you think you look like this? But you actually look like this? With the help of him and this— And me. —I’m going to show you exactly how to make sure that you always  look the right way every time you press.

What s up guys, Jeff Cavaliere, Athleanx. com. And Jesse Laico, Athleanx. com. So, when you re pressing over, do you have a hard  time getting the bar actually up overhead.

I mean, not out in front of your body, as  you see here. Because if you do, you might be costing yourself some strength gains  at the very least. Because we know that we are seeking strength on the overhead press, which  is predominantly what this exercise is used for, you want to have an efficient movement pattern,  meaning a bar path straight up. That becomes challenging for some people because they  don’t have the mobility to press that bar straight up overhead, as opposed to straight  but angled outward in front of the body. Meanwhile, this press really only requires two  things to execute it properly: thoracic extension through your mid back and external rotation at  your shoulder.

You guys can play along at home, just turn to the side. And this is now flexed  out, okay, rounded back. A lot of us have that position. Go ahead and raise your arms up as  high as you can come on higher, Jesse. That’s as far as it goes.

So, what happens is you guys actually get a bony block here, and I use Raymond to show you why  that happens in a second. The next thing is stand up nice and tall. Okay, now give me our rotation,  though, because if you’re not externally rotated, this is going to happen. What happened? I can’t get any further.

So, again, you’ve introduced a bony block. And the  reason for that anatomical stalemate is that on the humerus, we have something called the greater  tuberosity. And as I raise this up, if I’m at all internally rotated, you’re going to see that  actually blocks inside that joint. Right? It starts to hit the acromion there.

If I can  get externally rotated now, you can see I have relatively move that to a more outside position  that allows the humerus to be elevated without stopping. The same thing here when we talk about  flexion, if the whole spine is rounded forward, what’s more importantly happening is that  the shoulder blade is coming with it. And as it starts to hover forward and down, you’re  creating a blockade with the acromion once again, that doesn’t allow the humerus to go up. So, what do we do? Well, we have one move that actually addresses both of these requirements,  and it’s something that we can do right before we press that will take literally just a minute  or less.

Take one of the plates instead of putting them on the end of the bar, just yet you’re going  to grab it. You’re going to perform one drill. You grab the plate at the four o’clock  in the eight o’clock position here. You make sure that on the back side  here you’ve got good thumb support up the plate. Okay, now what you do is you stand  here and you’re going to raise it up, basically press it up overhead and go back as far as you  can.

Two things happening. Number one, you’ve got good thoracic extension that we’re talking  about. And secondly, with the positioning of the hands on the plate, you’re getting into more  external rotation or at least more neutral. If we would just grab a bar and try  to press overhead that way to warm up, you are in a more pronated position, obviously  of your hands to grab the bar, but a more internally rotated position. This is going to  do something really important.

Do it again. Up overhead about three or four repetitions. What this does is three things: number one, you’re providing a loaded mobility drill. A lot  of times, just working on mobility without a load falls apart when you step under a load. By having  even a moderate load in your hands here, you’re able to activate muscles in a different way.

Number two, you’re getting both at the same time, the external rotation at the shoulder and the  thoracic extension, which is a great thing. Number three, what that does is it allows the muscles of  the rotator cuff that are responsible for external rotation to actually do their job, waking them up  a bit so that they know that when you raise your arm overhead, their main job is to centralize  the humerus inside the glenohumeral joint. In other words, as you raise it up,  don’t let the arm slide up as it goes, keep it centralized so that as it goes up,  it stays in the middle. What that does is it continues to create room in this joint so you  can press overhead and get to that fully extended position. So, one more repetition nice and up  overhead each time you’ll feel it, start to open up more and more and more.

Great. Now after that,  put it down, now let’s go see on the bar. And what you’ll find, guys, is that not only can you press  the bar straight up overhead more easily, but you can actually do so with more strength because  of the efficiency of the movement. Straight up, overhead and back. And again, now you can  clearly see the ear properly in front and more importantly, the bar path going straight up and  straight down.

When we’re talking about building strength and the exercise guys, the efficiency  of that bar path is going to matter. The next thing I was saying, the last thing I’ll  say is it’s really important, as always, when you press to maintain shoulder health, to press out of  what we call the scapular plane. Meaning angled a little bit forward here. Yeah. And we can see that even by finishing with your  arm appears to be back behind your head, you’ve actually never left the scapula plane.

If we start  here and Jesse starts in that scapular plane, which is again not out here, but angled forward  just a little bit. As he slowly presses that bar up overhead and even when he reaches fully up  overhead into that full extended position there, you can see that as we were lower down, nothing  changes. He’s still in that scapular plane, so the bar actually has travel straight. It’s the  head that winds up peeking through that. It makes it appear as if the body has moved forward or the  bar has moved backwards when in actuality the bar path has stayed the same in the shoulders  have stayed in that nice position.

So, guys, I hope you find that helpful. Make  sure you institute this again three, four, five reps with a 25, 35 pound plate right  before you’re ready to step onto the bar and I promise you, it will have an impact. If you’re looking for programs, guys, where we put the science back in strength because  the details of how we do what we do matters. You can find them all over at athleanx. com.

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