How Often Do You Overhead Press?

Bigger Stronger Leaner Powerlifting & Strength Sports
1

Hey all,

I was just wondering how often you guys incorporate overhead presses into your training?

2

I do them on my secondary bench day before close grip banded pin presses

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3

So once a week? I was trying to do them every bench session (2-3 x week) but felt like it might be overkill. Lol.

4

yeah, once a week is plenty. Its fairly common for power-lifters to skip them all together and focus on improving bench.

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5

Iā€™ll do DB shoulder press on DE upper days every few weeks for a cycle of 2-3 weeks.

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6

Yeah thatā€™s way too much. Iā€™m sure itā€™d be a good thing for off season work to build on if your shoulders are a super weak point for you, but otherwise Iā€™d say once a week is sufficient. Your main focus in powerlifting is building the bench, not the overhead press.

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7

I do them 2x a week. But my focus isnā€™t powerlifting.

PRESS BIG WEIGHTS OVERHEAD BABY!!!

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8

This is true! Iā€™ll definitely keep them to just once a week then. Donā€™t wanna burn out my shoulders too much.

9

I do 2-3 work sets once a week, after benching. I was told by Josh Bryant (who coaches more than a few of the top bench pressers) that you should aim to get your overhead press to around 70% of your bench. If itā€™s significantly behind that then itā€™s likely that your shoulders are holding your bench back.

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10

I do 3x8-10 seated barbell on DE upper. I feel itā€™s necessary to balance out all the horizontal pressing.

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11

Wow Iā€™m alarmingly behind that, I guess I know my weak point now!

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12

Dude, your hair in that mini profile pic of yours. Fucking epic. Gotta dye my hair blond for meets.

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13

Haha thank youšŸ˜‚

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14

1x a week - def need more

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15

I overhead press once Iā€™ve gone long enough without overhead pressing to feel excessive shame for neglecting it.

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16

Since my new goal is to overhead press my own body weight, I might be the only guy on this thread whose plan is to put the weight over my head twice a week and only bench once. I didnā€™t say ā€œoverhead pressā€ because Iā€™m including Olympic lifting variations; getting by body weight down is as important to this goal and strengthening muscles.

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17

The thing is that this is a powerlifting forum so overhead pressing is just a means to an end, which is a bigger bench press. If you want to focus on OHP rather than bench thatā€™s cool, but thatā€™s not what is going on here.

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18

I didnā€™t say ā€œoverhead pressā€ because

Eh?

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19

Oh, yeah, I see my mistake. My goal is concerning the overhead press, but there are a lot of ways to strengthen the shoulders so I might be doing clean and press, or over head shrugs, or behind the head presses, etc, etc.

20

I seldom ever do Shoulder presses

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