The push press is an overhead urgent train that makes use of your decrease physique to generate momentum and assist transfer the bar upward.
Most weightlifters can profit from the push press as a result of it trains a number of main muscle teams throughout your total physique and is a wonderful solution to increase your overhead urgent energy.
It’s particularly worthwhile for athletes as a result of it additionally helps you develop full-body energy, which is vital for sports activities that require explosive actions, equivalent to sprinting, leaping, and throwing
On this article, you’ll study what the push press is, its advantages, which muscular tissues it really works, tips on how to carry out the push press with correct kind, the perfect push press alternate options, and extra.
What Is the Push Press?
The push press is an overhead press that begins with 1 / 4 squat. You utilize the momentum generated as you rise from the squat that can assist you press the bar upward till your arms are locked overhead.
This doesn’t imply it’s a sloppy overhead press (as some erroneously suppose).
The purpose of the push press is to generate simply sufficient momentum to assist get the bar off your shoulders and thru the primary few inches of the press, the place it’s most certainly to get caught. From there, your shoulders and arms do all of the work.
This lets you use heavier weights than with the standing overhead press with out decreasing vary of movement a lot.
Push Press vs. Overhead Press: Which Is Higher?
It relies upon.
The overhead press requires much less coordination and athleticism than the push press, which makes it a neater place to begin for new weightlifters. It’s additionally a greater measure of upper-body energy since you possibly can’t depend on a robust decrease physique to spice up your urgent numbers.
Alternatively, the push press trains extra muscle teams throughout your total physique and permits you to carry heavier weights than you possibly can overhead press. That is vital for 2 causes:
- It makes your coaching extra environment friendly (one train can do the work of a number of).
- It permits you to practice your shoulders with extra weight than you possibly can press with “strict” kind, which is usually higher for muscle and energy acquire and may also help in case your overhead press progress stalls.
The draw back, nonetheless, is that the push press is a extra technical train than the overhead press, which some weightlifters discover off-putting.
In different phrases, they each have deserves, which is why it’s typically useful to incorporate each workouts in your program.
A great way to do that is to incorporate the overhead press in your program for 8-to-10 weeks of coaching, take a deload, then substitute the overhead press with the push press for the next 8-to-10 weeks of coaching.
Then, you possibly can both proceed alternating between the workouts each few months or keep on with the one you like.
That is how I personally like to prepare my coaching, and it’s just like the tactic I advocate in my health guide for intermediate and superior weightlifters, Past Larger Leaner Stronger.
(For those who aren’t positive if Past Larger Leaner Stronger is best for you or if one other energy coaching program may be a greater match to your circumstances and objectives, take the Legion Power Coaching Quiz, and in lower than a minute, you’ll know the right energy coaching program for you. Click on right here to test it out.)
Push Press: Advantages
1. It improves your athletic efficiency.
Power and energy are totally different.
Power refers to your capacity to generate most power to beat resistance. Conversely, energy refers to your capacity to generate power shortly. Energy is energy plus velocity, principally.
Few sports activities require distinctive energy (powerlifting being an apparent exception), although most require energy (to dash, bounce, sort out, throw, punch, kick, and so forth).
Analysis exhibits that the push press is especially useful on this regard as a result of it entails lifting weights explosively, which helps you develop full-body energy that may enhance your efficiency on the sphere, monitor, or court docket.
Not like many urgent workouts, the push press can be a closed-kinetic-chain train, an train the place your fingers or toes are mounted on a stationary object (on this case, the ground).
Specialists typically agree that closed-kinetic-chain workouts are higher at boosting sports activities efficiency than open-kinetic-chain workouts as a result of they make it easier to develop better steadiness and stability, extra intently mimic the kind of actions concerned in sports activities, and practice extra “stabilizer” muscular tissues throughout your total physique.
2. It improves your overhead press.
Most individuals fail the overhead press because the bar reaches their brow as a result of it’s right here that your physique is in an inherently weak place (your elbows aren’t stacked over your shoulders and your wrists aren’t stacked over your elbows).
The push press helps you acquire energy on this vary of movement by permitting you to coach with heavier weights than you possibly can overhead press, which ought to carry over if you return to strict urgent.
The push press additionally forces you to manage heavier-than-normal weights in the course of the eccentric (decreasing) part of the train. That is vital as a result of analysis exhibits that doing heavy eccentric train is efficient for gaining muscle and energy and bettering athletic efficiency.
3. It trains a number of muscle teams concurrently.
Many individuals consider the push press as a shoulder train.
Whereas it’s true that the push press trains all three heads of the deltoids to a excessive diploma, it additionally successfully trains a number of different main muscle teams throughout your total physique, together with your higher and decrease again, abs, forearms, glutes, quads, pecs, and triceps.
Push Press: Muscle tissue Labored
The principle muscular tissues labored by the push press are the . . .
- Deltoids
- Trapezius
- Triceps
- Pectoralis main and minor
It additionally trains your mid and decrease again, abs, forearms, quads, and glutes to a lesser diploma, too.
Right here’s what the principle muscular tissues labored within the push press appear like in your physique:
Push Press: Type
One of the best ways to learn to do the push press is to separate the train into 4 elements: arrange, dip, press, and descend.
1. Arrange
Alter the hooks in an influence rack or squat rack so the bar is across the top of your collarbone like this:
Face the bar and grip it together with your palms going through ahead and thumbs wrapped across the bar, barely wider than shoulder-width.
With the bar in your fingers, bend your knees barely and lean ahead, positioning the bar on high of your shoulders and higher chest. Rise up, lifting the bar off the rack, and take one step again with every foot.
Right here’s the way it ought to look:
Alter your toes in order that they’re about hip-width aside and level your toes out about 20-to-25 levels (round one and eleven o’clock).
2. Dip
Take a deep breath into your abdomen and arch your higher again sufficient so the bar is immediately over your midfoot and your head is barely behind the bar.
Drop your butt 3-to-6 inches by bending your knees and permitting them to journey ahead in the identical path as your toes, then shoot your hips upward and lengthen your knees as explosively as attainable.
3. Press
When you attain the highest of the squat, use the momentum generated by your decrease physique and press the bar straight up. Because the bar passes your eyes, push your head and chest ahead and beneath the bar.
Preserve pushing the bar towards the ceiling till your arms are straight.
4. Descend
Reverse the motion and return the barbell to its beginning place on high of your shoulders and higher chest. Bend your knees once more to “catch” the bar because it descends in the event you want.
Don’t let the barbell fall again to the beginning place or attempt to decrease it slowly—the complete descent ought to be managed however take lower than a second.
The Finest Push Press Options
1. Dumbbell Push Press
The dumbbell push press (or “DB push press”) confers most of the similar advantages because the barbell push press. The distinction is that within the dumbbell push press, you employ dumbbells as a substitute of a barbell.
Utilizing dumbbells is helpful as a result of it trains either side of your physique independently, which helps you establish and even out any muscle and energy imbalances you might need. It additionally permits you to transfer your shoulders, arms, and wrists extra freely, which some folks discover extra comfy.
Nonetheless, you usually can’t carry as a lot weight if you use dumbbells, which limits the muscle- and strength-building potential of the train.
2. Kettlebell Push Press
Equally to the dumbbell push press, the kettlebell push press (or “KB push press”) trains either side of your physique independently and permits you to transfer extra freely than if you use a barbell, which helps you keep away from and proper muscle and energy imbalances and will really feel extra comfy.
This makes the kettlebell push press a viable different to the dumbbell push press.
3. Single-Arm Push Press
Within the single-arm push press, you practice one facet of your physique at a time. This forces your core to work more durable to stabilize your torso, making it a greater ab and core train than the common push press. Utilizing one arm at a time additionally reduces how a lot weight you possibly can press, so the single-arm push press isn’t as efficient at serving to you acquire muscle and energy as different push-press variations.
4. Snatch-Grip Push Press
Within the snatch-grip push press, you grip the barbell about twice as large as on the common push press. Individuals primarily carry out the push press with a “snatch grip” to enhance their efficiency on Olympic weightlifting workouts, significantly the snatch.
Until your purpose is to enhance your snatch efficiency, utilizing a unique push press variation might be smart. That’s as a result of adopting a snatch grip requires a level of shoulder mobility most individuals lack, and it considerably reduces how a lot weight you possibly can carry, which suggests it’s not as efficient as different variations for gaining muscle and energy.
5. Landmine Push Press
Within the landmine push press, one finish of the barbell is anchored in a landmine attachment. This implies the bar travels in an arc as you dip and press, which some folks discover extra comfy and steady than utilizing free weights.
The Finest Push Press Exercise
Right here’s a exercise that features all the perfect workouts for coaching your “pushing” muscular tissues, together with the push press:
- Push Press: 3 units of 4-to-6 reps with 2-to-3 min relaxation
- Incline Dumbbell Bench Press: 3 units of 4-to-6 reps with 2-to-3 min relaxation
- Dumbbell Facet Lateral Increase: 3 units of 6-to-8 reps with 2-to-3 min relaxation
- Overhead Triceps Extension: 3 units of 6-to-8 reps with 2-to-3 min relaxation
(And in the event you’d like much more particular recommendation about what workouts to incorporate in your coaching program to succeed in your well being and health objectives, take the Legion Power Coaching Quiz, and in lower than a minute, you’ll know the right energy coaching program for you. Click on right here to test it out.)
+ Scientific References
- Lake, J. P., Mundy, P. D., & Consolation, P. (2014). Energy and impulse utilized throughout push press train. Journal of Power and Conditioning Analysis, 28(9), 2552–2559. https://doi.org/10.1519/JSC.0000000000000438
- Loturco, I., Kobal, R., Maldonado, T., Piazzi, A. F., Bottino, A., Kitamura, Ok., Abad, C. C. C., Pereira, L. A., & Nakamura, F. Y. (2017). Soar Squat is Extra Associated to Sprinting and Leaping Skills than Olympic Push Press. Worldwide Journal of Sports activities Drugs, 38(8), 604–612. https://doi.org/10.1055/S-0035-1565201
- Soriano, M. A., Suchomel, T. J., & Consolation, P. (2019). Weightlifting Overhead Urgent Derivatives: A Evaluation of the Literature. Sports activities Drugs (Auckland, N.Z.), 49(6), 867. https://doi.org/10.1007/S40279-019-01096-8
- Kwon, Y. J., Park, S. J., Jefferson, J., & Kim, Ok. (2013). The Impact of Open and Closed Kinetic Chain Workouts on Dynamic Stability Means of Regular Wholesome Adults. Journal of Bodily Remedy Science, 25(6), 671. https://doi.org/10.1589/JPTS.25.671
- Kim, M. Ok., & Yoo, Ok. T. (2017). The results of open and closed kinetic chain workouts on the static and dynamic steadiness of the ankle joints in younger wholesome ladies. Journal of Bodily Remedy Science, 29(5), 845–850. https://doi.org/10.1589/JPTS.29.845
- Schoenfeld, B. J., Ogborn, D. I., Vigotsky, A. D., Franchi, M. V., & Krieger, J. W. (2017). Hypertrophic Results of Concentric vs. Eccentric Muscle Actions: A Systematic Evaluation and Meta-analysis. Journal of Power and Conditioning Analysis, 31(9), 2599–2608. https://doi.org/10.1519/JSC.0000000000001983
