Strict Overhead Press - weak off the shoulders

Okay I stand corrected, if you're a competitor in Strongman, Olympic Weightlifting, want to be in the Cirque Del Soleil, Human Pyramid competition, or you're the Ultimate Warrior then overhead press away.
 
how to improve your overhead press thread turned into you've no need to do it at all thread
 
Try a closer grip and work your triceps hard using board presses and weighted dips.

BTW, to any who doubt the importance of the overhead press, they are missing out on one of the greatest strength and mass lifts (I would rank it ahead of bench press) available.
 
Merrill said:
What are the exercises exactly? Just for reference. I assume bench press is one of them.



I did the shoulder flexibility test like this:

Rotater%20cuff%20test.jpg


Mine is terrible. I don't even think I can get my hands within 12 inches of each other. Should this be improved or not? I think Eric Cressey has a method for increasing shoulder mobility.
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I can touch mine. I are the pimp.

EZA, I know that you're a smart dude. Want to armwrestle?
 
Since that mobility test got brought up. EZA is that the best way to determine if you have the shoulder mobility for this exercise? what would you consider adequate mobility?
 
theres that one, the cuban-press type one and one where you put your hand on the opposite shoulder and try to raise your elbow above eye-level i believe
 
EZA said:
I don't mind being questioned or if people want to disagree with me, that's fine, but I would hope people would at least try to debate or share their point of view intelligently and have some sort of real basis for their opinions.

Every exercise has some degree of risk and some degree of benefit depending on the context. In the case of the overhead press there is a higher degree of risk than normal because of the biomechanics of the exercise. Study the shoulder joint for awhile, talk to orthopedic surgeons who have been around sports for awhile, and then you'll see what I'm talking about. The benefit is also not that great as I've already discussed and doesn't outweigh the risk for the most part.

As far as "putting things over your head is involved in any strength sport" please give specific examples in MMA or other sports of where your arms will be extended directly over your head against any measureable amount of resistance. Where exactly is this an important part of an MMA skill? As far as I know from watching, training in, and preparing fighters for many years your opponent is rarely standing on top of you, but maybe your MMA skills are different than mine?

Very rarely in any sport outside of olympic weightlifting, strongman, gymnastics, and a few other sports is there much of a need for any large amount of strength in this movement pattern. Also, the second half the movement is largely triceps strength and there are a million ways to impove tricep strength and power that are more applicable than overhead pressing.

If you're in the Cirqu De Soliel or want to be a part of that human pyramid building thing they do in south america I think it is, then by all means overhead press away, otherwise I think there are much better ways to spend your time training.
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I'm actually about to go to the gym so I don't have time for a long-drawn out post but there is one point I wanted to address. A lift does not have to directly mimic the activity done in the sport. How often does a football player put someone on his shoulders and bend up and down? How often does he lay on his back and push someone up. How often does he bend down and pick up a fallen player by his collar and pants?

To quote Rippetoe on this subject, "For an exercise to be useful as a conditioning tool for a sport, it must utilize the same muscles and the same type of neurological activation pattern as that sport. It need not be an identical copy of the sport movement."
 
TS:

Way to improve press off the shoulders:

-alternating volume, intensity, frequency
-focusing on Dynamic Effort.....especially the concentric portion of the lift.....even if it means resetting after each rep...
-eccentrics do help as Fatty has mentioned
-isometrics may be of value if only for a change
-rotate exercise selection or variation....anything from grip positioning, to speed of the movement, to the way you do it, to the actual switching of the exercises(side presses, bent presses, jerks, push presses, strict, unilateral, )
-use bands and chains in conjuction with DE
-alternating sets of max effort with repetition effort or dynamic effort..
.
.
.
.
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-Using movements in strength training to replicate sports skills is a losing battle. Overhead Press is a great exercise which if used intelligently can be of great use in upper body development, vertical pressing strength development, as well as sport carryover.
-athletes often neglect injury prevention protocols then blame exercises for their injuries...
-lack of balance often leads to injuries which is then blamed on specific exercises
-coaches/athletes must evaluate their specific limitations to create programs....almost nothing is black and white...


EZA so would you train vertical pressing at all?
 
EZA said:
Very rarely in any sport outside of olympic weightlifting, strongman, gymnastics, and a few other sports is there much of a need for any large amount of strength in this movement pattern. Also, the second half the movement is largely triceps strength and there are a million ways to impove tricep strength and power that are more applicable than overhead pressing.
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Not trying to take sides here, but this might be why a lot us aren't seeing eye to eye. I think a lot of us here, myself included, like the press not because it builds tricep strength, or even shoulder strength (we could do that just as well with countless other exercises) but rather because it forces you to use your whole body synergistically as very few other lifts can, and most of the other lifts that do require as much whole-body synergism also require a heck of a lot more technical proficiency (think snatch).
 
EZA said:
I don't mind being questioned or if people want to disagree with me, that's fine, but I would hope people would at least try to debate or share their point of view intelligently and have some sort of real basis for their opinions.

Every exercise has some degree of risk and some degree of benefit depending on the context. In the case of the overhead press there is a higher degree of risk than normal because of the biomechanics of the exercise. Study the shoulder joint for awhile, talk to orthopedic surgeons who have been around sports for awhile, and then you'll see what I'm talking about. The benefit is also not that great as I've already discussed and doesn't outweigh the risk for the most part.

As far as "putting things over your head is involved in any strength sport" please give specific examples in MMA or other sports of where your arms will be extended directly over your head against any measureable amount of resistance. Where exactly is this an important part of an MMA skill? As far as I know from watching, training in, and preparing fighters for many years your opponent is rarely standing on top of you, but maybe your MMA skills are different than mine?

Very rarely in any sport outside of olympic weightlifting, strongman, gymnastics, and a few other sports is there much of a need for any large amount of strength in this movement pattern. Also, the second half the movement is largely triceps strength and there are a million ways to impove tricep strength and power that are more applicable than overhead pressing.

If you're in the Cirqu De Soliel or want to be a part of that human pyramid building thing they do in south america I think it is, then by all means overhead press away, otherwise I think there are much better ways to spend your time training.
Click to expand...

No exercise is sport specific! Playing your sport makes the strength that you gain in the weightroom sport specific!

Joe DeFranco
 
I will post a longer post when I have the time later, but I specifically want to address the concept of specificity that is being lost and confused here in the last few posts.

"For an exercise to be useful as a conditioning tool for a sport, it must utilize the same muscles and the same type of neurological activation pattern as that sport. It need not be an identical copy of the sport movement"

There is definitely some validity to this statement but "the same neurological activation pattern" includes the direction of force application. This is what you are missing. When you're laying down on a bench or doing any pressing movement that is horizontal to the body's position you are at least applying the force in the direction it is used as part of the movement pattern of the sport. Vertical pressing above the head is forced produced that is not the same "type of neurological activation" at all because the direction of force is in no way part of most sports skills outside of the ones I mentioned.

The principle of specificity is getting way off base here, I'll post more on this later. The quote by De Franco is the same one HIT advocates use to justify doing only high intensity machine training for athletes.
 
EZA said:
I will post a longer post when I have the time later, but I specifically want to address the concept of specificity that is being lost and confused here in the last few posts.

"For an exercise to be useful as a conditioning tool for a sport, it must utilize the same muscles and the same type of neurological activation pattern as that sport. It need not be an identical copy of the sport movement"

There is definitely some validity to this statement but "the same neurological activation pattern" includes the direction of force application. This is what you are missing. When you're laying down on a bench or doing any pressing movement that is horizontal to the body's position you are at least applying the force in the direction it is used as part of the movement pattern of the sport. Vertical pressing above the head is forced produced that is not the same "type of neurological activation" at all because the direction of force is in no way part of most sports skills outside of the ones I mentioned.

The principle of specificity is getting way off base here, I'll post more on this later. The quote by De Franco is the same one HIT advocates use to justify doing only high intensity machine training for athletes.
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What the hell do HIT advocates have anything to do with this? And is there a reason for seemingly having a vendetta against the overhead press? I didn't think a lift that used so many muscles at once could be so controversial...
 
EZA said:
OHP is very hard on the shoulder joint, I wouldn't advise doing a whole lot of it, at least not very heavy, if you're also training in MMA. Over the long run it will increase your risk of impingement and it's not exactly a movement patter that is particularly important in MMA or many sports anyway.
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Ever heard of Bill Starr, or J.V. Askem. They would both dissagree with you. In an article entitled "Bring back the Press" in Milo, Starr talks about how superior it is to the bench press for sports ..."It is extremely useful to athletes because it strengthens those muscles which are used in sports, the deltoids, triceps, and back. I would rather have a football player press 300 than bench 400. The overhead press is more convertible to any other upper body exercise than the bench press."

As far as shoulder injury..."Presses are especially valuable to the rotator cuff. Jack King, a former olympic lifting champion observed that when the press was still a part of every routine, he never heard of rotator cuff problems, but once the bench press became primary, rotator cuff injuries flourished."

Talking about lifters dropping the press..."As a result, there is a relative weakness in the shoulders of strength athletes. This disproportionate strength not only hampered overall upper body progress, it also brought about a flurry of shoulder injuries."

"Pressing needs to be reinserted into all strength athlete's routines. Pressing not only helps stabilize the entire shoulder girdle, it also helps give the upper body a strength boost"


J.V. Askem has written many articles, and several on the press and the superiority for sports function, shoulder health and balance it holds over the bench press. A lot of it has to do with the way the press works the upper back like NO OTHER EXERCISE.

Like others have pointed out, most sports require that you tranfer force from your feet, through your body, in a coordinated effort. The press, push press, and jerk are THE upper body pushing exercises that do this, and so they are more convertible to any sport skill performed on the feet than the bench, the incline, or the dip. Mark Rippitoe mentions this in this interview:

MK: All three lifts in the CFT are done standing, which you link to functionality. Taking the lift used in place of the bench press, why is the press a better indicator of functional strength than the bench?

MR: It
 
In this forum it's mostly every kind of lifter except for MMA guys. there are but a few.
 
I'm composing a reply.
 
I thought this was an MMA Strength & Power board yet everyone on here is talking about Olympic lifting and Strongman. If people think that the strength and conditioning for an olympic lifter, a strongman competitor, and an MMA fighter should be the same they are greatly misinformed.

In the real world of combat and contact sports like football there are a great number of shoulder injuries and it's not because of a lack of overhead pressing, it's largely because the nature of the sport causes repetitive compression of the humeral head into the glenoid fassa. Over time this wears the joint down and can lead to impingment syndrome and other related dysfunctions.

Yes strengthening the muscles of the rotator cuff will help, but heavy overhead presses are a compressive exercise, they will make the joint worse off not better. Old school olympic lifters and strongman were not hitting heavy bags and didn't wear shoulder pads and smash into each other at high speeds. They had great shoulder mobility and did not have the repetitive compressive impact of the sports today. This is not rocket science, it is basic biomechanics of the shoulder joint and is common knowledge among orthopedic specialists and therapists who deal with athletes day in and day out.

I worked in the NFL and at the D-1 level and I've worked with high level fighters for several years, the shoulder joint is something I'm very familiar with and have talked to some of the nation's orthopedic experts about. If you're not a competitive athlete in combat sports then sure you can probably incorporate some overhead pressing into your routine and it's not a big deal. For athletes in MMA, football, and several other sports that put tremendous stress on the shoulder joint capsule because of the skill involved, there are much safer, more effective, and smarter ways to train the shoudler than a lot of heavy overhead pressing.

As far as specificity and the overhead press and concept of specificy in general I will write an article later on it because there is obviously a great deal of confusion on the topic.
 
EZA said:
I thought this was an MMA Strength & Power board yet everyone on here is talking about Olympic lifting and Strongman. If people think that the strength and conditioning for an olympic lifter, a strongman competitor, and an MMA fighter should be the same they are greatly misinformed.
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see my post above.
 
Well from my personal experience I think OH pressing is great. I have dislocated both my shoulders playing Rugby, and my left should has come out many times since the orginal injury. Since I found this forum, I haven't had a single dislocation and my shoulders feel MUCH more stable and a hell of a lot stronger. With propper warm up and not pushing my limits too far I find OHP much easier on my bad shoulder then benching.

And in MMA if this guy couldn't OHP is own body weight we wouldn't see a sweet KO like this.

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