If you can only choose one – those are the rules of the Iron Face/Off – today, we're
pitting three shoulder exercises against each other.
We have the seated dumbbell press, the standing dumbbell press, and the standing barbell press.
Which is the best for you?
Today, we're going to determine that in another Iron Face/Off.
What's up, guys?
Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.com.
It's another Iron Face/Off.
We're talking about the shoulders.
You don’t want to wind up in this guy's position because this guy isn't lifting any
weights anymore, and we're going to pit three shoulder exercises against each other because
it matters.
They all might seem like presses – the seated dumbbell press, the standing dumbbell press,
and the standing barbell press – but doing the wrong ones can actually wind up costing
you your shoulders in the long run.
I'm big on keeping your shoulders healthy because you kind of need them.
The first thing we aren't going to cover, that's not in here, is behind the neck press.
That's because we've talked about it in other video before.
The scapular plane here, the angle of the joint that the shoulder, the upper arm bone
here, rests in.
The glenoid is actually angled forward at about 45 degrees here.
So you don’t want to press with your arm way out to the side so you can get your arm
behind your head.
That's actually fighting your anatomy.
So we've wiped that one right out of consideration.
But we do start over here with the seated dumbbell press.
What we want to know is "Is this a good option?"
All of these are probably options that you've used.
I've used all of these options, but I've got to be very specific here.
I have to get down to the one recommendation; the one winner.
I can do that for you.
We start here, in reverse order.
We're going to eliminate this one.
We eliminated it for a couple of key reasons.
When we do the press a lot of people will say they like it because they're more specifically
targeting their shoulder because they're taking their legs out of the equation.
They're pushing, mostly, right here, from the shoulders, and directing the work there.
I'm going to argue that's actually not happening because what you're going to do, as you start
to fatigue especially, is dig in with your feet.
You're going to start pushing because we need to have that counterforce.
We've got to drive up, then we have to push down.
That's just how the muscles work.
Our body wants to push away as we drive up.
So as we fatigue we start to do that.
The next thing we do is try to start to recruit some help.
The natural way the body will recruit help is leaning back a bit.
Meaning, we're going to arch a little bit, lean back to create this slight angle, a slight
incline, to do what?
Recruit the upper chest.
So now we not only have the upper delts working, but the upper chest is now helping – as
you can see – to do this press.
But when I do this, and I dig my head back, into the bench I wind up with two things.
Number one: neck problems.
You've probably felt it before if you've ever pushed too hard on a press.
More importantly, I'm digging my upper back, and scapula into the bench, which interrupts
the normal upward rotation that's necessary to press upward, in this normal pattern here.
We call it the scapula humeral rhythm.
Meaning, you need to have your scapula and you humerus move in sync with each other in
combination of a 2/3 – 1/3 contribution to get smoothly up, overhead.
But if I'm pushing into the bench, and interrupting the smoothness of the rotation of the scapula
up while I raise my arm up, then I've screwed up the whole press here.
That's not what we want.
We've got to X that one out.
But now we can come up to standing dumbbell press, and a standing barbell press.
Now, when we do the standing dumbbell press, a couple of things that we've just done are,
we're ground based – our feet are on the ground, which is athletic, which I like.
And the second thing we've done is demanded a stronger core.
I have to be strong here to be able to stabilize, and press up.
We also know that it's sometimes easier – always easier – to press one arm up at a time,
versus two for that very reason.
My core has to be able to say "Okay, you're stable.
Now press the combined weight here", or "You're stable, now press half of that weight."
It's always going to be easier to do half.
But when we press them together – because we have to compare it to a barbell press – we
have to have that strong core.
When we do, we can do some more things here.
The dumbbells can actually move up in an arc.
So we can hit the shoulders in more of an arc, and get more of a contraction here at
the top – you can feel it instantly – than I could if I had a barbell, since the barbell
can't bend.
We have that.
We also have the opportunity, if needed, to get a little assistance from our legs as we
fatigue, to turn this into more of a bit of an assisted push press toward the end.
So when we reach failure here, we can keep it going a few extra reps with that extra
push.
We've got that for consideration.
But we come over here to the barbell press.
If you're going to do the barbell press how some people do the barbell press, then it
instantly becomes the second loser in line here, behind the seated dumbbell press.
That is, when people go wide.
They go out here.
Even if they're going with their ring fingers on the smooth portion of the bar they come
up – look at what that does in terms of the position of your elbows.
The position of your elbows is then starting to push them back to the side.
Again, like this.
Even if you're leaning back you had that path upward where the elbows are starting to creep
toward that 'behind the neck' position.
The ideal position, as the dumbbells will allow you to, is to have your elbows in front
of your body, more in line with that scapular plane that Raymond demonstrated at the beginning
of this video.
But we can change that.
We can do the barbell press with a narrower grip.
So right here, on the edge of the knurling.
Right where it starts, put your fingers there.
That's going to put you at about shoulder width apart from here.
Now, look at the angle of your elbows in front of your body.
Much safer.
Arms are in the scapular plane.
When we go to push from here, you get that extra lat activation down, and back behind
you which helps you to stabilize beyond just your core.
So there's an advantage there.
I press up, and come down again.
Follow that same path.
Up, and down.
Now, they're kind of similar when done that way, in regards to the position of the elbow,
but we have to choose a winner.
If I had to pick one, because of the extra versatility of the path of those dumbbells,
because I can arc them, because they can be independent of each other, because I can't
hide an imbalance right side, versus left side that I can't with the barbell; I'm going
to have to – if I had to – I'm going to have to pick the standing dumbbell press.
Guys, the Iron Face/Off, we try to cover all the reasons why.
We cover the pros and the cons, but to try to help you come up with the best exercise
because I know you're going to be tempted to use all of these in different variations.
We use them all, but we program them specifically for specific reasons.
If you're looking for a program that lays it all out, step by step; head to ATHLEANX.com
right now and get our ATHLEANX training program.
In the meantime, if you like the Iron Face/Offs, if you want to see more exercises compete
head to head, let me know what you want me to cover and I'll do my best to do that for
you in the days, and weeks ahead.
All right, guys.
See you soon.