One-armed DB Military Press? Thoughts?

[BeRGLeZ]

I've been reading a bit about unilateral presses and thought these would be cool to do to change things up.
Anybody else do these? Had my first session of them today, was awesome!

How effective are these for Strength, carry over to other lifts, functional strength, hypertrophy, etc?

Cheers S&P

 

[Donut62]

I've done them before. They are a good lift. If you do them military style, trying to keep the torso straight, they will crush your obliques.

 

[spirez]

Good lift. I like them because they work your core and balance a lot more. I perform them standing.

Side presses are cool too

 

[spirez]

Good lift. I like them because they work your core and balance a lot more. I perform them standing.

Side presses are cool too

 

[Chinaboxer]

unilateral movements are also great for balancing a weaker side as well. to answer your questions, strength is more a function of "how" than "what". so, yes, they can be used to increase strength. what i like about military press, is that it recruits several muscle groups to do the complete movement. any "compound" movement definately helps to improve "functional strength" because of that reason.

 

[vince89]

You need even more balance with 2 dumbells.

 

[Keith Wassung]

Double Barbell overhead press:

One of my favorite "every now and then" moves for the shoulders is an overhead press done with a barbell in each hand.

To do this exercise, you need to set the pins in the power rack so that they are just below shoulder level. Place (2) olympic bars across the pins and then get between them so that you are facing the side of the power rack, rather than the front.

You will have to experiment with your grip to find just the right spot to have the barbells level-this is very important. Use one hand at a time to test which spot works best. Grip the bars so that they are resting on your shoulders parallel to one another. In the starting position, the bars are resting on the pins and your legs are slightly bent. Stand up with the bars across the shoulders and give the bars a chance to level off.

Press the bars overhead to a locked out position-The reason this is an effective movement is that you must do it slowly and with a great deal of control. If you try to "power" the weight up, you will quickly find the bars whipping up and down and out of control. This will force you to do the press slowly, which is perfect for deltoid and upper back stimulation.

The length of the bars and the nature of this exercise will also have a positive effect on the stablizers of your torso.

Start with the bar-believe me a 45lb bar will feel a lot heavier than a 45lb dumbbell. Work on slowly adding reps in a smooth, "near perfect" fashion. The legendary Tommy Kono (and if you dont know who Mr. Kono is, you should) was able to press 135lbs for one rep in each hand at a bodyweight of 175lbs. I was able to duplicate Mr. Kono's feat last summer, but then I found he that he did it without any ANY COLLARS---back to the drawing board. This is an excellent adjunct move to any pressing program or it can be used for a couple of weeks to give your shoulder joints a break from heavy presses. In addition,
it will draw the confused stares of your fellow gym members, which makes it a perfect exercise to perform.

Keith Wassung

 

[spirez]

You need even more balance with 2 dumbells.

No.

 

[vince89]

No.

Of course you do. When you do one armed you use the other arm for balance and your core focuses entirely on the one dumbell. When you do two armed if you have one side stronger than the other (which most people do) your balance will get fucked and you only have your core to stabilise yourself.

 

[magicman531]

I do a lot of both one arm and two arm pressing, one arm pressing for me requires more core strength. You have to balance a weight that is only on one side of your body. The 2 db version doesn't give me much trouble.

 

[Donut62]

Of course you do. When you do one armed you use the other arm for balance and your core focuses entirely on the one dumbell. When you do two armed if you have one side stronger than the other (which most people do) your balance will get fucked and you only have your core to stabilise yourself.

The loading is offset from your centerline when one dumbell is used, which means your core has to cope with the torque produced. You don't get this effect with two dumbells. It's the same reason that Ross loves one handed suitcase deads for building a jacked core.

 

[Crusty D]

Nice post Keith. Now if i only had a power rack at my gym

 

[vince89]

Yeh but you have to balance two heavy objects overhead as opposed to one. And you dont have a free arm to use for balance when using two dumbells. Ross' book says that doing Push Press with 2 dumbells requires significant core balance.

 

[vince89]

Also I have personally done push press with barbells, 1 dumbell and 2 dumbells and I find 1 dumbell and barbell the easiest.

 

[Monger]

Ross' book says that doing Push Press with 2 dumbells requires significant core balance.

Of course it does but that doesn't mean that 1 db doesn't require more core balance. I have to agree with Donut and the others on this one. Any time you load one side more than the other it will require more balance and stabilization.

 

[Rare Chestnuts]

Yeh but you have to balance two heavy objects overhead as opposed to one. And you dont have a free arm to use for balance when using two dumbells. Ross' book says that doing Push Press with 2 dumbells requires significant core balance.

But not as much as one.

You are wrong.

 

[Gavin LeFever]

Of course you do. When you do one armed you use the other arm for balance and your core focuses entirely on the one dumbell. When you do two armed if you have one side stronger than the other (which most people do) your balance will get fucked and you only have your core to stabilise yourself.

No. Your body will use the other weight to counter balance.

Try to do a heavy farmer's walk with only one hand holding a DB, the other hand free and tell me what you think.

 

[RedNeckJiuJitsu]

Vince, 2db definitely requires stabilization, but not as much as 1, because the weight is off-center in the latter. Do you really think that swingin' an unweighted arm about is gonna really gonna be much help in stabilizin' a 100lb db? And if you dont swing your unweighted arm about, that completely negates your argument. Not tryin' to be a prick, just bein' honest.

I wont try to argue with 2 db OHP bein' harder than 1, but that doesn't mean that the core is workin' harder. There's a reason that waiter walks are performed with 1 db.


Keith, I'll hafta try that sometime. Sounds like fun.

 

[Mumrik]

This is also one of the many reasons one should always carry a case of beer in each hand. Just holding one in one hand is harder on the core, and just plain wrong.

 

[Brad Morris]

Another option is to sit on a fit ball and do the Military Press. If you really wanted to make it hard try Keith's idea but do it sitting on a fit ball.