Barbell Shrugged - Upper Body Strength: Vertical and Horizontal Pressing Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Coach Travis Mash - Barbell Shrugged #567

Episode Date: April 12, 2021

Shrug family, this week on Barbell Shrug, we are talking about upper body strength, vertical and horizontal pressing. In this episode, you will learn the basic mechanics of vertical and horizontal pressing, the differences in musculature and pressing planes, the best exercises for upper body strength, eliminating imbalances in the upper body, as well as how to program for upper body strength. Before we get going, I want to thank our friends over at Organifi. Every single morning, your boy, me, wake up, head down, keep mine in the fridge. You don't have to, but I do. I pour two shots of the green into a shake and I drink it. And here's the reason. My lifestyle does not allow me to get all of the vegetables and the wide variety of vegetables that

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and use the code shrugged to receive 10% off any order. You have a 365-day money-back guarantee. Head over to leakygutguardian.com forward slash shrugged. Friends, let's get into the show. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Anders Varner, Doug Larson, Coach Travis Mash. Hang it out. This morning, we are going to be talking about pressing, vertical, horizontal,

and why I need to do more of it. Because if there's one thing that is just so, I don't get stronger at it. Kind of annoys me. It's kind of boring. Especially when it comes to shoulder pressing. I don't think I've PR'd a shoulder press in the last seven years of my life. But it's also really important. Doug Larson, when you think about, when you start thinking about the movement patterns of shoulder press,

and I'm going to be playing like devil's advocate for sure because I do back training all the time. I will pull and pull and pull on things as long as I can. But when it comes to pressing, like I'm just not a huge bench presser. I've never really found bench pressing that awesome. Shoulder press to me is like the most boring thing in the whole wide world because mainly I'm just not that strong at it and I very rarely get better at it. But I know it's super important. And when I was training really hard, I did a lot of it.

But how do you think about kind of programming and implementing the pressing motions into programs? I mean, a lot of people look at bench press and it's like kind of like their go-to thing it's like what gets people into lifting weights yeah so you know it's all the muscles on the front of your body like guys guys that are new to training they want to like do abs bicep curls and bench press it's like all like it's all the front of your torso basically everything you see in the mirror. Kind of eventually you graduate away from that. Like, you know, CrossFit was very kind of anti bench press in a way.

They kind of, they kind of overdid it where they were pushing people away from, from doing heavy horizontal pressing. And they're, they're really emphasizing gymnastics, which is probably great for, for some reasons, but has some, has some limitations that come along with it. But as far as the balancing movement patterns and all that, like I treat pressing like I treat everything else. Like you want to have a mostly equal balance, assuming you're not eliminating some type of asymmetry or imbalance,

a mostly equal balance between all of your major movement patterns and horizontal and vertical pressing. And then you can throw angled pressing in there. Yeah. You know, those are your two basic ways to, to go about pressing. So you want to have an equal balance of those that you have with your

pulling exercises, you know, between 10 and 20 sets a week to failure on, on a good hard set for, for each one of those. If you are, you know, looking to gain,

gain muscle mass, hypertrophy, et cetera. Uh, if you're a CrossFitter, it's a little different. You're gonna have to bias overhead. Yeah.

If you're a weightlifter as well, you're gonna have to bias overhead. Powerlifters are going to bias, of course, on pressing because bench press is, you know, such a key part of that sport as opposed to doing anything overhead but it beats you up a little more than pulling to your point from earlier you said you like pulling and

you know like pressing as much i feel like i feel like pressing definitely beats me up more than pulling i can pull all day long and it doesn't really doesn't really give me any joint pain doesn't really bother me too much yeah pressing you know i can't do the same amount of volume and have my shoulders feel the same from pressing i might do that today like when little diesel goes and takes a nap i might just go sit on the seated bro machine have a great afternoon just get like 200 reps in just because i can't do that on the the machine press we're all dancing in zoom right now putting our arms over our head or pulling travis bash i'd love for you to make the case for outside of power lifting and it being

a tested lift i mean so much of what we do in olympic lifting is just leg drive and then stay like stability overhead um and as far as like maximizing strength and balance and musculature, like what is the real need for us to be able to press in both of those planes? You know, the problem with most weightlifters is the lack of stability. You know, like Hunter started bench pressing a lot. And next thing you know, she's making snatches and making jerks because she's like hypermobile, like a lot of great weightlifters are. And so, but you want to optimize that. You got to have some stability in that joint or nothing will stick overhead. So it definitely helped her, you know, like the lockout. If you bench press properly,

you know, close grips and you really situate the lockout, it's going to help a lot of guys, you know, that do a lot of the elbow bending and getting the press outs. I know with Morgan, you know, he became a man from the waist down early and, you know, remained a boy waist up. And so, you know, there was some stability issues. So, benching has definitely helped him there. And it just depends on who you are well the strict press as well is like one of the like if you were to put just the large group of

exercises together that everybody really should be doing it's squats deads military press yeah bench press and then a horizontal row if you just did those five you said you're going and then some sort of carry so you're actually have some movement while moving a load around but if you take those five like strict press is going to be the one that is just the hardest to train over and over and over again like you're gonna you hit a wall almost in strict press. And I noticed just in myself, I'm not like the, I don't have the biggest volume as a, as a body. I'm not a huge person, but people that I maxed out at 185, I want to say seven, eight years ago,6 was like impossible and then and i i often wonder if chasing kind of like a 1rm in these pressing movements is actually important or is it accumulating volume building stability in the shoulder um because at some point you just don't

have the musculature like you do in your legs to just continually be pushing the weights. Is that a consistent theme in the pressing motions, or is that just me and I need to just man up and get after it? I know with the shoulder press, the military press, it is tough because there's just not a lot of muscles being recruited. You mainly are stuck with the front delts and triceps whereas now when you're benching incorporate you know the pecs too and that's obviously their bigger muscle and they move weight much more easily than like the shoulder press i did i personally love the shoulder press you know when i was younger it was something i did a lot mainly just because i wanted to you because I wanted to do a 300-pound military press. Then I did a 315, and then I stopped.

Once I got higher in powerlifting and became specific, I just focused on benching, and I didn't do any. I often wonder, would it have helped? Maybe. I guess it all depends on your weaknesses really yeah i mean as far as as far as maxes go as well like your strict press is going to be the lowest absolute number out of basically every max that you're going to do yeah you're you might you might bench press 350 but you but you only strict press 230 yeah something like that like it's it's just a

low number so if someone comes to you and says okay well i have a strict press of 140 you go okay great like maybe we get you to 200 you're gonna add 60 pounds over over you know many years probably a lot of times the deadlift like you show up you go i deadlift 335 they're like oh what i don't we'll get you to 5 550 you know yeah yeah in five or ten years or however long well I think it's also really important for people that go into the gym. If you take those big five, like you may be able to do some, you know, progressive overload with your back squat for five, five, six years in a row and not miss, especially if you're, if you're starting out, you're just a beginner,

getting into like some intermediate stages of training. Like you may not miss just adding five pounds to the bar for a very long time. It's if you add five pounds to the bar and a strict press, it could just sit on your shoulders for a really long time. Because that's a it's a there just isn't a massive. There isn't there isn't a ton of muscle to move the bar from that position. One thing that I've had a ton of success with though, and it actually makes training a lot more fun when it comes to the pressing movements is getting rid of a barbell and doing a lot more dumbbell movements. That seems to be much healthier for me on my shoulders. I enjoy, um, like the range of motion is, is much better. Um, when you

start to look at a lot of the shoulder injuries as well, like bench press gets a ton of rap as having, um, like a really negative side effect, especially when you start moving a lot of weight around. What, what is it with the bench press that people struggle with so much that the shoulder and the pec really start to i mean you start to see injuries like legit injuries and bench pressing that are terrifying and powerlifting competitions but also just the long-term beat down of of those movements on the joint well you, you know, the ball and socket, the glenohumeral joint, is meant to be able to have lots of room in there. And when you start bench pressing, you'll notice great benches

almost always become so internally rotated, shoulders forward. And now you got the ball with very little room, you know, so that the supraspinatus is probably the number one, you know, injury that you hear about. It just doesn't have any more room in there. It's one of the rotator cuffs. You start to, you know, sheer, there's got to be good spacing and then everything's comfortable. That's why I would make a, I would make the statement that even power leaders should do the military press because that's going to track it back in the middle and do lots of the rowing like Louie says.

But I would also say every powerlifter should balance or any kind of external rotation with bands with cables with dumbbells yeah they keep a healthy shoulder then with any shoulder related movement whether you're pressing or pulling you pull up bench press handstand push-ups whatever it is like optimizing scapular movement is a huge part of learning technique right and with the bench press you're you're optimizing basically no scapular movement on purpose to shorten you're doing powerlifting style bench press you're trying to like you're trying to get the highest possible on paper number to win a competition you're locking your scapula in place and you're not moving them at all and so that's that's something that's a

good idea if you're trying to win at the sport but it's not the healthiest thing for your shoulder yeah and if you're a powerlifter you're not you're not powerlifting is a sport where people they want to win and they're not optimizing their health they're optimizing winning so just going into that you need to know that you're doing something that's not necessarily that great for your for your shoulder just like throwing a baseball is not that great for your shoulder but you're doing it knowing there's risk here, but I'm trying to accomplish a task. There are better and worse ways

to go about doing it, but it's just not good for your shoulder to do that much volume of scapula locked together, bench press super heavy all the time. Unless there's a really good reason to prioritize that very specific movement i think there's there's a lot of other better options that are better healthier for your shoulders

especially if you're someone who doesn't compete anymore and you're just trying to feel good and look yeah i think it's really important to understand the difference between competing in a sport and optimally training for just being strong and when, when I think about those two big movements, like bench and shoulder press, if, if I was to just give like a very high level general recommendation, like stay in five, eight and twelves in some of those movements, when it comes to like rep ranges, just because trying to lock down your scap, like you guys are talking about and bench as much as you possibly can just to say that you bench 300 pounds, 200 pounds, whatever your lifetime goal is. I literally benched 300 pounds one time, put the bar back in the rack and went, okay, I think I'm done with

that. I got to that lifetime goal and I think I'm good. I don't really need to max that out anymore. There's something about that when you're just so locked in. And especially if you're not just a power lifter that really practices that form. It's a really tough movement to go super heavy with. And if you back down the weight just a little bit and you're able to actually just get into some rep ranges where you're able to be more hypertrophy focused i often just think about the the pressing motions is like how does this i accumulate volume and be under load as much as possible where you're like telling your brain hey we have to be strong in these areas it's really important that we do it um but testing it is if you were to max out your bench press on a regular basis,

you're going to have problems. It's a really tough way to go about training, to be maxing out a joint that's relatively small and muscle tissue that just doesn't have a ton of volume like your legs or your back is going to have. Um, so choosing a path in which you're getting higher reps, a little bit lower weight, and just kind of like building a more durable muscle and a more durable

joint is the way that I often recommend people going about the shoulder training, just because it's, it really is a tricky way to go heavy often. I would even recommend, too, is making sure that around that scapular region is very balanced. So for every vertical overhead push, you have a vertical under the head push. So you have your military press and you have your dips then you have your vertical pull-ups you have your

vertical upright row i would recommend on the upright row let me be clear that you should either use dumbbells or kettlebells so that your scapula can move the way it's meant to a lot of times we use just a fixed barbell or like the curl bar, it like won't allow the scapula to move properly. And then like Doug said, can cause issues. You need it to move the way it's meant to move. And so, and then you got your bench and your pull and then your external rotation. If you did all that a little bit, which is in the one-time challenge, they had that even though they don't know it probably,

but they're doing that very thing to keep their shoulders healthy. And looking back over my history as a coach, I don't remember one shoulder injury to date, even in my power literature so far. Since 2015, I can't. Yeah, I don't remember any shoulder injuries. So, I mean, I'm not saying that that's the reason, but that's one of our protocols.

Yeah, I think that that really is. I mean, the accessory work, I almost think of all of the pressing motions that I do as accessory work. I'm not really testing a 1RM dip. And I think that that stuff, especially people that come from a functional fitness background where, let's be honest, there just aren't many dip bars in a CrossFit gym. They're kind of expensive. they're kind of clunky most of them come on these big machines or they're attached to a big cable structure which most gyms most crossfit gyms just aren't spending the money to get and i mean i have one that sits in the corner over here that doesn't really get used that much because you got to like plug it into the squat rack and then it's banging around like i just don't do it that much but i think those movements and especially when

you get into you know any sort of like weighted six to eight my my shoulders and chest always feel amazing but i think that stuff always gets lumped into like arm training as if you're like doing triceps and very few people actually think about shoulder health when they're doing dips or building strength in that um in that plane but they should it's like you know i think keeping that whole reason like balanced out you know even like i definitely agree 100% what you said with you know thinking fives eights tens you know higher higher volume like medium you know intensity and like not very frequent once twice a week at most yeah i think if you do that i think it'll definitely help you know lengthen your career if you're a spence athlete or it'll help you know keep you healthy as an adult just trying to be healthy you know

yeah basic hypertrophy work especially we healthy. Yeah, basic hypertrophy work, especially when we're talking about overhead, basic hypertrophy work overhead and just a lot of overhead stability work, whether it's handstand holds, handstand walks, overhead yoke walk type activities. You need more time in that locked out position, making sure that you're getting that, your scapula locked in place perfectly. Like your scapula needs to be all the way upwardly rotated.

And a lot of people, when they are all the way overhead, their lower trap especially isn't as active as it should be. And so they're kind of missing that last little bit of upward rotation and posterior tilt. And so to your point about the supraspinatus travis like if you're not fully upwardly rotated at the scapula then you're going to be more likely to be

to be pinching your supraspinatus between your acromion and and the the ball of your humerus and then it just kind of kind of frays that tendon over and over and over again might get a labrum tear and then now now you got chronic shoulder pain and maybe need surgery someday yeah i did that yeah um the the other thing i think that's really important when it comes especially when you're uh doing just horizontal pressing and getting into bench not only the the implement and finding things that are the tool, but and finding things that actually work with your anatomy. But you should just find stuff that feels good. If bench pressing doesn't feel good or barbells don't feel good or flat bench doesn't feel good. Don't do it. Don't do it. There's nothing overly special about a bench press just because people enjoy talking about bench pressing.

Just because it's like a number that you can write on the board and put your stamp of approval next to it as like your PR. There's nothing overly special about the bench press specifically. And if you can go into an incline or find some sort of incline angle that works really well for your anatomy and feels really good and you feel athletic and coordinated in that position, you should totally go to that. I mean, you taught, you mentioned earlier the close grip bench or like taking a wider grip,

like find something that works for you that feels really comfortable because forcing yourself into a box just because there's a tested event at a power lifting meet that says you should bench press and this is a test of strength is not the best reason to put yourself in harm's way or do something that feels uncomfortable. That really will lead over time to something bad happening. But on the flip side of that, there's nothing like putting five plates on each side, laying down, and making it. It will just suck the soul of every man around.

That's why we have you here so you can tell us. It'll suck the soul. The only thing that that's really good for is quieting rooms. Yeah, it's exactly. I have looked in the eyes of my competitors and saw defeat already when they saw me bench. They're like, well, okay. Second's not bad. Yeah.

And I also think that if you have the option to get to a corporate gym or if you already go to a corporate gym, the machines for shoulder work are – I love them. They're my favorite because all the angles – let's be honest. The majority – I shouldn't say the majority. Many people struggle actually getting into a really good overhead position. So if you're doing a military press and you push, push, push, and all of a sudden your scap just doesn't go anymore. It doesn't allow you to actually get your arm all the way overhead in a good position and your ribs flare out. Now you've lost your core. You're probably not thinking about, you know, driving the floor away and pushing the bar after that yeah and now or you're leaned back and you don't actually know where your finish position is so your ability to kind of stabilize

everything in your body and then just focus on the the pressing in a machine the older i get the more i love machines because i could just find that exact muscle that I want to work and, and go do it. And I don't have to worry about, there's a lot of people that just struggle. I can't tell you there's, there's gotta be dozens of members of my gym that we lost just because we didn't have the proper tools to be able to get them to go and get overhead properly or press properly. You know,

very simply, if you can take an old shoe and put it in a corner, do a landmine press. There are so many ways to get into that musculature without forcing your body to do a strict military press and have to go overhead, in which if you don't get all the way overhead, then the weight's super unstable and you're losing your core.

Your glutes probably aren't turned on. You're putting your low back in a tough spot. And there's plenty of options that you can do to change that angle. And the landmine, if you're in a functional fitness CrossFit facility, has got to be the best way to go about that. And if you're actually in a corporate gym where you have machines, go and find a machine that feels good to your body. And that way you can have options without forcing yourself to feel like you have to do a military press or a bench press. Those machines are phenomenal. And are you

going to like maximize your strength? Are free weights better for you in the yeah but the best exercise is going to be the one that you can do consistently without getting injured so machines aren't the worst option they're just a way that you're going to be able to have more consistency and and reach the goal faster to be able to keep training i will say this angled pressing sorry angled pressing is going to be much better on your shoulders, like flat bench and overhead are kind of like the extremes. If you're doing, if you're doing a dumbbell bench press flat,

you're going to be like at full, full, full extension at the bottom. If you're doing overhead pressure, full, full, full flexion at the very top. But if you're angled,

you're kind of in between the extremes, which, which means that your joint stress is going to be lower for a handful of reasons and so doing more inclined bench press uh you know low inclined bench press high inclined bench press you don't have to just pick the 145 right in the middle but ideally you're you're high enough where you can still get some scapular motion like i was talking about we don't have to fix your scapula at the bottom you can still you can still protract and retract throughout the movement.

So at least enough of an angle where you can do that. But then also, we're talking about overhead press. Doing a high incline barbell or dumbbell press, you can do more weight than you're going to be able to do on a full strict military press. But you're still getting that really high angle. I think there's a lot of crossover there. So if you're doing a lot of high incline pressing, you're doing a lot, a lot of high incline pressing,

and then you're also doing a lot of handstand walks and whatnot, I feel like you're going to have a lot of stability overhead, a lot of strength overhead, but like minimal joint stress compared to just doing a lot of overhead barbell overhead pressing. I would say that the only thing that, you know, the people that I would say should bench press would be, there are, you know, if there's anyone listening to you, like is a thrower, you know, you're going to, if you're a shot putter,

you're going to have to bench press because it requires a lot of stability. I looked at the numbers, you know, I train several throwers, especially shout out to Mason at Wake Forest, killing it. But, you know, most of thelympian level throwers are at that 500 pounds and above in the bench press they're they're jacked because it can be no give as you're spinning you know if they don't have that stability in that joint in that position they're going to give and they're going to lose energy but so i was you know football players linemen not even all football players i would say linemen they need but i was i would say push press might trump the bench press but they should still bench press um rugby players but then that's really that's really it you know maybe mma some but like

not really you know yeah but i think that that's that's a great point for almost all training is understanding what your goal is if you are an athlete that is going to compete in something and maximal strength and power is the thing that you need the most, one for survival, if you're in playing football and two for performance, if you're a thrower, you should probably work on maximal power output and being as strong as you possibly can. If your goal is to be able to go live a healthy, strong life and eliminate as many asymmetries as possible. So you can have proper shoulder function, attack it with that mentality versus setting, you know,

trying to be the strongest, most powerful person on, on the, uh, what are they called? the track and field? Is there one for field specifically? Dude, speaking of track and field, there is a British – the guy who just won the British 100-meter sprint is the – you'll see later today I'm going to put a picture of him up. He is the most jacked dude ever. You want me to start talking shit to him? You want me to start

talking smack? Yeah. I want to get that guy. He is yoked. The point I want to make is like tell me again how muscle makes you slow. He is so jacked. I'm like that just shoots that theory right in the foot.

He is jacked. So, I mean, there's this other side of things we're not talking about. Let's be real. Everybody loves to be jacked from bench press. I mean, every boy wants the big pecs, the triceps, the shoulders that come with the bench press. There is that side of things. So, like, if you're a dude who wants to be

huge you're gonna have to bench press for sure i guess push pressing i mean uh push-ups maybe i don't know yeah i think especially in in cross-city functional fitness gyms like the decline bench press is the most underutilized yeah press in the world so glad you brought that up like uh julian pano talked about this a couple years ago on the show he was like man if you get if you got shoulder issues but you still want to press you know like a kind of like super maximal pressing like super heavy pressing decline bench is fantastic like it doesn't give people nearly as many problems and it's more comfortable and if you're just trying to put on muscle mass and just just get a huge uh stimulus but you don't really care about being good at specifically the bench press you're just trying to put on muscle mass and just just get a huge uh stimulus but you don't

really care about being good at specifically the bench press you're not you're not a power lifter like you can substitute flat bench for decline bench and then do like do a low incline as well and then do lots of push-ups and other horizontal pressing and and save your shoulders from from some unnecessary stress from bench pressing specifically especially if it's already given you problems well you imagine walking into a crossFit gym and seeing like nine decline benches set up. People like, I'd be like,

we're going on some low pack. The thing that the decline does is just, it shortens the moment arm for the shoulder flexor moment arm. And so it just, it just takes the pressure off that anterior deltoid pretty much and puts it mainly on the pecs and the triceps, whereas the flat bench is going to absolutely maximize that moment arm. So it just makes it easier on the shoulder.

Yeah. And more on the pec, which is what we all want, really. Huge pecs. What do you guys think about doing military press behind the neck? Because that's what I used to do all the time. That was like – I never did it from the front rack. I always went behind the neck when I was a kid. Until I found Olympic lifting really, I always did behind the neck military press.

I would say it depends. I love that answer. It always does. It always depends. Like I came out of gymnastics and so had great shoulder mobility, had no range of motion issues whatsoever when I started lifting weights when I was like 14, 15. And so I did a lot of behind the neck press and a lot of behind the neck jerks

and behind the neck pull-ups and behind the neck everything. And it was totally fine. But I think if you don't come out come from gymnastics uh then you even if you do come from gymnastics you need to check for pre-existing injuries and range of motion issues and whatever else but especially if you don't come from something like gymnastics you're just some regular person you're a soccer player and then now you're coming into the gym like you're going to want to make sure that you you have have all the prerequisites to pressing behind the neck safely. Yeah.

Which basically, the two basic ones are just, do you have full range of motion? Right. Well, we'll start with that. The full range of motion thing is really just the key. If you don't have full range of motion, then you just shouldn't do it. I think that point, Doug, is so incredibly important, but I don't think people even fully understand what the full range of motion of the shoulder really is.

Like, especially when you see like a CrossFitter doing a handstand push-up and their head goes down to the ground and then they push, that's like a quarter of the way of what your shoulder is supposed to do, getting the bar or getting dumbbells all the way down. Like when I think about pressing as I used to try to do this until I realized how not strong I was compared to gymnasts, but go onto a dip bar and do a full range of motion dip.

And then just think about what would happen if you kept pressing and kept pressing. All of a sudden, you're able to go into this full, the idea of being that you're pressing your whole body away, and now you're into this handstand position. Then lowering your body down into a full range of motion handstand, which would be your body on parallettes and a handstand going all the way down. Like that's the full range of motion of where your shoulders should be able to move. They should be strong. I think I got this from Max Schenck back in the day when he wrote a simple shoulder solution

and just hanging out at his house and watching that guy hang out on parallel bars. But he's like, why is everybody strong pressing overhead, but they can't press at every angle in the exact same way and control their body in the exact same way, yet we prioritize horizontal so much or we prioritize overhead so much with bench press and shoulder press. But everything else in the middle, we just totally forget about and we never train. And those ranges of motion and being able to move properly through those range of motion and understanding how far your shoulder should be able to move and control the

movement is super important because it's most of the time when you see people doing that stuff, the weight's way too heavy, they're limiting the range of motion or they're just doing an exercise that doesn't even allow the the full range of motion that behind the neck stuff a lot of times is just like people will contort to get there you know like if they have to like you know do excessive yeah neck flexion then you know now you're you're all you're then now you're doing a major posterior. Their scapula is winging out just so they can get in that position.

Now you do have issues, but if you can maintain a neutral spine and keep your neck relatively neutral as well, it's a great thing. So are behind the neck pull-ups or pull-downs or pull-ups where they got a total bad rap there for a while because they're like oh it'll hurt your shoulders but you got it depends like if you don't have the range of motion to do it yes you'll hurt yourself

but if you do keep that mess and do it so you can keep that range of motion you if you don't use it you're going to definitely lose it so yeah if you can lay on your back and do a you know a floor slide we'll call it like a scapular wall slide basically lying on your back with your feet straight up in the air and you and you don't have to push your shoulders back and pull your hands to the ground your hands just lay flat on the ground nice and relaxed and you can just go from the that kind of scarecrow position all the way to arms overhead and your arms are just dragging on the ground the whole way and you're not really like use a lot of effort to push them any lower than they already are then you probably have full range of motion yes you know when i was actually finally able to do that

when i stopped trying to lift as heavy as possible every day my body relaxed and started moving like it was supposed to that's like a really really hard assessment when you put somebody on a wall and say, go, to see how well their shoulders move. That was really impressive in my Zoom. I was checking myself out. I'm assessing my own movement through Zoom here on this podcast. Incredible. Technology today, you can't beat it.

Especially people who can keep their ribs down and do that. A lot of times they'll get that extra extension in the spine so they can change the range of motion just enough so they can do that. But if they remain neutral and can do that, then they can do whatever they want over their head in any position they want. And you should let them so they'll keep that. Do you have any kind of prerequisites before you start allowing a little bit more speed and power?

Because the push press, I really enjoy push presses. Why? You can use your legs. Makes everything better. It's more athletic, yeah. More weight. Makes you feel good. You can actually get better at it.

But do you guys have any, outside of just the ability to have a full range of motion in the shoulder, the progressions for moving into push press, do you have a standard set of protocols or assessments that you go through to get people into the push press? Well, I mean, if a person can do the close grip overhead squat, then they can do any of that. And if they can't, then we start to look at all. Do you have any videos up of people doing that? If not, that's your next YouTube tutorial. Yeah, we had the girl who first did it we had hannah black is one of my original really good way that is

and she she is tall too yeah she is i mean she's like six one maybe and can do close grip you know overhead squats and like and then she can touch her butt to the floor it's amazing and she is she is incredible with that but we have several of our athletes can do it so i'll do i'll try to get some today because we talk about a lot i want people to go watch the video of people doing that well all right we'll actually see what overhead position looks like in the squat absolutely i think you should spend a lot of time just doing you know standard strict pressing before you start doing push presses. You should have at least a year of normal lifting under your belt or some other relevant background.

When you're doing push press, you're basically using your legs to throw a little bit more weight overhead than you normally would be able to just strict press. You're lifting extra heavy right from the get-go if you are if you aren't just doing strict pressing and you're going straight to push presses and so it's just it's just more loading overhead than you in a in a much shorter timeline than you would get if you were doing basic standard hypertrophy work overhead yeah i the push press is my favorite overhead exercise, specifically, and coaching it to people. The athleticism side of it and the ability to just transfer power from the ground to overhead is so awesome for people to see. When I think about the strict press specifically, though,

if you're coaching it to people and you actually aren't talking about just pushing the weight over your head, but kind of teaching them that they can drive the barbell up by pushing down on the ground and getting them thinking about their body and their glutes, like stabilizing their pelvis, finding a good position in their core to be able to press from everything else seems to go a little bit easier if you can control that conversation early. Cause once you get into adding speed and some sort of more dynamic movement to bringing in the push press, but now that I have more experience and I've seen a lot more athletes, I don't think it's the right thing to do to just go into teaching Olympic lifting and teaching the jerk on day one.

People just don't have a connection under the bar without having done just a strict press or getting their glutes turned on to, to be able to create a very stable, um, stable core. It's just, it's probably too far of a reach early on. And the push press is just such a good tool to be able to get a, to transition that and, and how your your body can the dip and drive getting your legs involved in the movement and then all you have to do for the jerk really is is getting that that final piece of driving under the bar which is very complicated for many people but at least you're only adding one additional piece to the movement versus saying, okay, we're going to jump and then we're going to get underneath it. It's just too many moving parts. And it's not like I'm holier than thou in this. I've taught many people, especially early on, this is how we do a jerk. It's like

day three of them in the gym. And it always looks so funky. They're always, they're never moving under the bar well. But if you can get them to understand the body positioning, if you can get them to understand how to stabilize their spine, you know, lock their glutes in, drive through the floor, even though the bar is going overhead. And think about it as this big full body movement. It's a really good progression. And then just add the dip and drive piece.

And then you could just have to add the driving under the bar piece for the jerk um but that progression really should be hammered doug you saying doing it for a year i would that's a that's a long time for people to to do it but to be able to actually like it it makes sense that you should spend some time actually getting strong in your shoulders before you just start doing big heavy movements yeah and that's because you're a person dependent and yeah for sure very conservative of course a conservative number because you're no i'm i'm agreeing with you for many people uh i i think people just be kind of shocked to hear that because in every foundations course in every crossFit gym in the country you teach squat on day one and then on day two you teach deadlifts and then sumo deadlift high pole and then all of a sudden day three it's Olympic lifting day and

now you're on day four and you're thrown into a full program. I definitely think it's okay to learn it early and to practice it early. But as far as like the, your, your training volume, what's actually causing a stimulus to have you grow muscle mass and get stronger. I think you can, you can practice with lightweights and that's totally fine.

Like you're just, you're just learning how to do something. Yeah. And that takes time as well. But, but as far as putting on muscle mass and getting bigger and stronger, I think starting out with more, more controlled, you know, like bodybuilding tempo oriented, you know, three sets of 12 with a, with a three or four second eccentric, like that type of training is, is, is beneficial for pretty much any new

person. Dude, I'm so happy you just brought up eccentrics. Mash, in the programming for the One-Tone Challenge, there's a you program eccentrics on the jerks or on push press a lot. It's really heavy to slowly lower weights down like that, especially through the full range of motion on like a three second descent from overhead because look i am going to go one two three and then drop it on my shoulders and try and catch it without hurting myself um i guess obviously eccentrics are good but what is like a a you know like a safe and effective way to go about working on eccentrics in a muscle that, man, just stabilizing your body with weight overhead is hard enough as it is, and then lowering it, not breathing basically because it's so heavy, and then slowly and controlled lowering

it towards your shoulders. You need that eccentric control. I really write three seconds knowing I'm just saying under control is what I'm saying. But if I don't say three seconds, people will just – they're just going to lower it. Yeah, see. And most weightlifters just do not – they lack stability.

And the injuries that you're going to see in Olympic weightlifting is going to be, you know, like hypermobile, lack of stability. That's going to be the problem. And so I'm trying to – you know, like hypermobile, lack of stability, that's going to be a problem. And so I'm trying to, you know, the injuries I've seen, especially with females, overhead, shoulders, elbows, those two joints, and just so happens the push press, military press are both going to involve those two joints. I'm trying to keep people safe is really what I'm trying to do. And if you're stable, man, I promise you this, is like a big jerk is much easier.

Like I still could jerk 400 when I was 43 years old, you know, because I had very stable shoulders. I'm not afraid of the weight overhead. It doesn't feel like, you know, only my bones are holding it. It feels like I'm capable, you know. Yeah. The jerk was heavy. I still do push press very regularly.

It's still my favorite overhead lift. It's the jerks stopped though the speed of that and my shoulder mobility even though my mobility is probably better now it's like a it's like a timing plus mobility thing yeah and it just it ends up it's not something i can't fix very quickly it's's just, do I have the time to fix it? Or do you want to? And do I want to? Because I'm not lacking a lot of, I just want to be strong. Let's be honest.

I don't need to go to the Olympics. I can't. They won't accept me. There's no application process outside of just being jacked. That's the only application process uh but that was like the the very first thing that i i probably stopped doing on the strength side of things uh me too i don't jerk anymore either and like i just clean i don't even snatch anymore so i just do the cleans and you know because i just don't want to you know it, it's really like, could I? I'm sure I could, but I don't want to.

Yeah, and I always – I should say always, if I had a consistent injury that happened over and over and over again throughout my lifting career, it was tweaking my neck doing heavy jerks. And it always was just like something that happened with the speed and the catch and stable. I don't know exactly where the breakdown in technique was, but that was probably the only thing that really plagued me on an injury side is waking up with a stiff neck because my track was all tweaked out from trying to jerk heavyweight. And it just stopped being that important to me very quickly after I stopped competing in it. Let me tell y'all something crazy.

Since we're talking about military press, there's a guy I might've talked about before, Grant Pitts. Have you ever mentioned that name? He, okay. I can remember. Everyone listening needs to stop,

push pause and go Google Grant Pitts. This dude was 6'1", 380 pounds of muscle. Now, I know you think right now you're saying bullshit. Wait, did you send the picture of this guy to us? Yeah, that really big dude. The guy is a giant. Everything I'm saying is true. I know everyone listens to the show.

The guy that you learned from growing up? Yeah, that I would go. I would drive just so I could train with him, and he would verbally abuse me. Yeah, yeah. I saw that dude. He did seated, behind the neck, very strict military presses with 455 pounds. I heard about this legend, and I'm like, bullshit. And when I first went there, just so happened, he was there doing military

press, and I saw 455 for five. Not one rep. He did five, and he paused the last rep on his monster trap. If you're – Smashed it. You know you're a savage when you pause the last one and you like just look to see who's looking like yes look around look watch this this is number five i'm gonna pause i'm in a different level i'm gonna set it down on my back real quick and then

strict press it right on the bottom yeah oh man that's a heavy squat for people, and that dude is repping it on military press. I've never squatted 455, not even close. I'm like, wow. Anyway, that's the craziest thing I've ever seen in the strength world. I've yet to see it since or before. Anytime I ever saw somebody do a strict press over 200 pounds, I just immediately thought how like 185 to me that was body weight it was so hard to get to and the training of that lift is just so brutal

not like hard like squatting it's brutal and mentally like every tuesday you show up and it's strict press day and you're like god what am i gonna add like little change plate little one low yeah how do i how do i get stronger this am i gonna add like another rep and then you can't it doesn't go it doesn't move like that and it's just really really challenging to mentally go to that to check in. And you're like, oh, God, here we go. Here's another day of not going forward. Have you guys ever heard of the Kaizen principle?

I bet Doug has heard about that. You know what I'm talking about? I have heard of it, but I don't know. I feel like you're about to go into a different genre besides strength. No, it's totally strength. So the Kaizen principle is like you can take like a quarter quarter of a pound a half pound oh yeah it just in like there's your body doesn't know the difference and you just put it on each time you do it and like but you do that for a year and next thing you know so i'm saying the military press i bet if you use the kaizen principle would be perfect you know so now I'm doing 86, 86 and a half.

You know. Maybe change play. Yeah. It's like I saw a guy get hit right in the forehead with one of those, like somebody punched him between their fists, split his head open. Comic relief for you right there. But, yeah, I saw that mess. Dropped him.

One shot dropped him, split his skull. Yeah. Oh. Brutal. It was right in the middle of the gym too oh my damn that i own i'm like man anyway that's another story for you um doug i know that when uh when we last time we changed in your garage when you were doing uh when you were still in California and I was in California. We were living the California dream. We – it's actually how I enjoy training shoulders the most.

When we set up your landmine in your garage and doing pressing from all of the different angles and all the different stances like going down to dropping down to one knee doing inline lunge positions I think it's something that people really can play with a lot and the military press or strict press whatever you want to call it and bench press get a lot of the the accolades as being the big lifts, but the ability to kind of like challenge that position, Doug's getting knocked out by his kid right now by some sort of hickory, it looks like. But the ability to challenge a lot of those movements, but dropping down, like you can take your landmine,

drop down into a full squat and press from there and just challenge your core, challenge your, um, your body to be in different positions and not solely focus on the amount of weight that's on there and find different ways to, to really train your shoulders. Because it, if, if weight is the only thing that you're going to be trying to add to the bar for your strict press, it's, it's,

it's going to be a really long road because you're just going to get to a point where the, a five pound increase could take 12 months. Yeah. A little bit at a time. I mean, we mentioned all the different angles and how it's a little bit easier on your shoulders than straight overhead or,

or, or flat bench press with that, with our locked scapula. And the landmine press is one great way. Can you guys hear my kids screaming in the background? Breakfast time, fighting over a banana in there. Hopefully it's fighting over bacon. Yeah. Okay, they're out so the landmine pressing is a very convenient option for for

people that are at at crossfit gyms because you don't really you don't really need a landmine you don't need any equipment but it allows you to do an angled press in a very conservative way that's that's really easy on your joints like a lot of baseball players especially they have like they already have a torn cuff and they you know they already have a labrum tear or whatever it is like they're just trying to to stay in shape so they keep playing baseball for as long as possible before their career is over like they'll they'll do a lot of landmine pressing because it's a way to add volume to your to your shoulder training without really beating yourself up too much and so that's i mean if you look at crossFit, the training volume to be really good at CrossFit

is incredibly high. There's got to be a balance there of doing all the things you need to do and then also getting enough training volume in where you can be in shape enough and muscular enough, et cetera, to actually be competitive. There's a balance there. You don't just go in and just bench press you know 40 sets a week like because you'll kill yourself nobody does that but but you you need to strike a balance between doing enough heavy stuff of the big lifts and then just doing

enough assistance work to just put on enough muscle mass and have enough capacity to be good one thing i might say before we shut down is like you know the bench press is one of the most technical lifts that are out there so if you're wanting to get good at it you should learn from somebody like the military press i'm not sure there's a little technique but mainly you're just pushing but the bench press there's leg drive there's pushing back there's like you know that if you you want to get a good position to where you can cut that range of motion down slightly and then be able to get as close, you know, right off your chest, pushing back towards your shoulders. There's just so many tricks, like where you put your hands based on where you're strong, where you're weak.

Obviously, you know, if you're mainly – if you have huge pecs, weak triceps like me, you should do wide. You know, if it's the opposite, too close. And interesting how the triceps and the pecs help each other but those that we could get we could definitely go into detail all about that but i think we're we've been doing going hard so yeah right on team make sure you uh when you're thinking about your training especially in in the vertical horizontal planes yes the military press or strict press are going to be it's going to be your big the go-to for overhead and the bench press for horizontal but switch it up get a landmine make sure you're hitting as many angles as possible don't forget

about dips i almost wish we had spent more time talking about the importance of dips or kind of some more decline bench press options. And then just mix the angles up. Don't just think about pressing in the vertical and horizontal planes, forcing yourself into positions that may or may not be the most comfortable and optimal for your body. Have a little bit of flexibility in the way that you think about the training. Change the angles, change the way your torsos set up um but as always just kind of make sure you have stable core turn your glutes on press hard travis smash where can

they find you actually.com there it is doug larson instagram doug c larson i'm anders varner at anders varner we are barbell shrugged barbell underscore shrugged. Mondays, Wednesdays, podcasts. Come and hang out with us. You can get over to barbellshrugged.com forward slash store. That one. Podcast. No, podcast. E-books. It's been so long. E-books. It's a Monday. E-books.

Programs. Nutrition. Mobility. Making strong people stronger. We'll see you guys next week. That's a wrap. On Wednesday, we're hanging out with Tyler Christensen from from the u.s air force make sure you get over to leakygutguardian.com forward slash shrugged and use the code shrugged to save 10 also organifi.com forward slash shrugged to save 20 on the green red and gold juices and of course head over to our friends at the air force airforce.com, Special Warfare Unit. We'll see you guys on Wednesday.