Hey guys.
Sean Nalewanyj here at www.SeanNal.com-ww.BodyTransformationTruth.com, and in this video I wanted to quickly discuss
the Guillotine Press, it’s also sometimes called the Neck Press and I wanted to outline
why it’s a bodybuilding exercise that I highly recommend steering clear off.
The Guillotine Press is actually not a very common lift that you’ll see being performed
but enough people have asked me about it, that I figured making a video was a good idea.
And hopefully anybody else searching for information on this on YouTube will find this video and
their rotator cuffs or their life in general will be saved as the result of watching it.
So for those who don’t know, the Guillotine Press is a bench pressing variation where
instead of tucking your elbows in slightly like it’s normally suggested, you used a
very wide grip and flare your elbows out all the way so that your upper arms are perpendicular
to your body.
And then instead of lowering the bar to you lower chest like you would on a standard bench
press, you actually lower the bar right to your neckline instead.
Now, the truth is that in terms of muscle building effectiveness, the Guillotine Press
is actually a pretty good movement.
Flaring your elbows out actually places the line of pull more inline with the largest
chunk of fibers of the chest, and so it should provide better activation of the pecs in comparison
to a standard bench press.
However, injury prevention should always be treated as a foundation or factor in your
workouts because your ability to train and to continue building muscle, it hinges on
the fact that you’re healthy enough to do it.
When you’re not injured and when you have no aches or pains then it’s really easy
to dismiss this, but as soon as you get hit with an injury you will very quickly change
your mind.
So, with the Guillotine Press there’s two obvious problems; the first is the simple
fact that you’re lowering a loaded barbell right to your neck.
If you’re a beginner then this is extremely dangerous and even if you are more advanced,
it’s still going to be dangerous nonetheless.
You never know what could happen in the middle of any given set, and even though the chances
are low, if you were to tweak something mid-rep ad one of your arms was to give out or if
you underestimated how much weight you could lift and the bar came crashing down, then
having that bar right inline with your neck is just a bad idea all around.
And this for me is reason enough not to perform the Guillotine Press even if you do have a
spotter.
But, side form that the second problem is having your elbows in that fully flared out
position.
It does put more tension on your chest like I’d mention, but it also puts your shoulders
into an extreme internally rotated position and this is going to put a lot of stress on
your rotator cuffs.
Now, you might not have any issues with this the first time you perform the Guillotine
Press or the second or the third, but overtime that stress is going to accumulate and it
could set you up for real problems.
Like I said before, don’t screw around when it comes to injuries.
And the shoulders are definitely an area that you want to protect because they’re involved
in pretty much every single major upper body exercise that you do.
If you tweak your shoulders and have had this experience personally multiple times in the
past, it can easily throw your entire training plan off track.
So, it’s for those two reasons that I would suggest avoiding the Guillotine Press.
I’m not saying that you’re guaranteed to get hurt, but the risk/reward just doesn’t
balanced out in my opinion.
Now at the very least, if you do insist on doing it, which I of course don’t recommend,
but if you’ve made up your mind that you’re going to ignore this advice, then at the very
least perform it using dumbbells.
You’re going to get the same basic movement that way and even though you might end up
injuring your shoulders, at least you won’t die from the bar dropping on your neck.
That said, a much better plan is to just perform your bench presses and your dumbbell presses
in the proper safe way, which is to slightly tuck your elbows inward at your sides, at
about a 45o angle to protect your shoulders and to lower the weight down to your lower
chest.
So thanks for watching, guys.
I hope you found this helpful.
For more science based, no BS training tips just like this along with nutrition and supplementation
information to maximize your muscle building and your fat burning progress, make sure to
check out my Body Transformation Blueprint System.
You can do that by clicking here or by using he link in the description box below.
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Talk to you guys again soon.