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. In the meantime, if you haven't done so, make sure you
leave your comments below and let me know what it is you want to see in the future videos,
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