i’ve been thinking about adding strict standing overhead presses to my routine…i use GTG with squat, bench and deadlifts…no assistance…
altough benches are still my priority i am interested on increasing my overhead strength…any tips from the overhead pressers?
thanks in advance
stupid question: whats GTG?
Grease The Groove-synaptic facilitation: The idea of a “Hebbian rule” workout; strength is a skill.The more you practice a lift, the better you get at it. Sooo,you do anywhere from 2 to 10 (ALWAYS do the least amount of sets that gives you progress-I rarely need more than 3 set per day per exercise) sets a day, no more than 5 reps, usually half of your max reps, with hours inbetween lifts, maybe 3-6 days a week of whatever you are trying to train for(one arm push ups, weighted pull ups, squats, handstand push ups,etc). The most recent proponent is Pavel Tsatsouline (Naked Warrior/Power to the People). My experiance with clients is a “burnout rate” of 3-6 weeks on a given exercise. So I rotate what they work on. A typical GTG routine would be one arm push ups, pull ups and pistols. Maybe next phase would be weighted dips on rings, barbell rows and barbell squats. With my clients I will pick 2-3 GTG as skills to practice and then have them follow a typical hypertrophy routine like EDT 3 days a week. To answer the original question, combining overheads with benching leads to burnout in my humble experiance.I would use them as alternates; 3-6 weeks of one then the other making sure to do at least 1 workout per week of the “off” exercise.Hope that helps,zachariah salazar
GTG-Grease the Groove (Pavel)-basically this involves “practicing with heavy weights” frequently in order do get good at a pet lift.
Overhead lifting- Why not try doing push presses or jerks instead of strict military press? Your other exercises are all “grinds”, add an standing explosive exercise to the mix. Just about anyone should be able to get AT LEAST their bodyweight overhead-if you want to consider yourself strong. I just hit 315 the other day on a clean and press in a commercial gym-you can just here them pissing in their pants 
As a pleasant aside, if you want an easy read that shows you how to combine ideas from both camps get Functional Training for Sports by Michael Boyle. Good 2,3 and 4 day routines with lots of strength “practice”. Strength Training for Performance Enhancement is Mike’s video that shows examples of these type of protocols.Good luck! zachariah
GTG is short for Greasing The Groove .
In short it’s just doing an exercise as much as possible while staying as fresh as possible .
Crouching Tiger
shoot? Your own bodyweight? hehe, I’ve just tried 40 kg so far… I think perhaps my max is 45… MAXImUM 50 kg. that’s infront, and not behind. behind is another story alltogether! hehe
i train three times a week…alternating between squats and deads each time and benching the three days…just varying intensity…
i think explosive presses are a good idea…i was thinking on alternating squats and benches one session and deads and overheads another session…i just don’t want to stop beching…i have a squat/bench meet in october.
i haven’t experienced burnout so far by the way…but i do want to try EDT for strength after my meet.
I that to increase your standing overhead press, you have to do a couple of things (1) technique (2) getting the low back and mid-section strong and (3) getting your body physically and mentally prepared to lift heavy weights over your head.
Technique-Use a staggered stance, ie your dominant foot in front of the other by about 10-12 inches, almost as if you were taking a baseball batters stance-this puts your in a much more powerful and stable position to lift. Practice with a somewhat narrower grip-many guys use the same grip on their overheads that they do on the bench press-I think bringing your grip in just a bit will give you a stronger and faster press. Speed-you have to to really get the bar moving fast and keep it moving fast-think explosive!
One of the limiting factors in the overhead press is the lower back and mid-section-you can have a really strong lower back from doing deadlifts and squats, but its a different type of strength when elevating weight overhead-I would suggest doing movements such as overhead lockouts ( you dont have to use a ton of weight) waiters walks, and overhead shrugs to strengthen the low back and obliques. Train your mid-section hard-I bet if I looked at all of the members of this board, the common denominator of weakness would be lack of emphasis on mid-section strength-we all neglect it-its not much fun, its not much of a challenge and at the end of the workout, we always say–I will do it at home tonight in front of the tv–and then we dont. Use weighed movemements and do as much static stuff as possible-I am of the opinion that the mid-section should largely be worked with static movements.
To really overload the body, I believe you have to do standing presses, for several sets of fairly low reps, such as 5 or less, and frequent near limit singles. ( such as 90-95% of max for several reps) I also would encourage you to do some sort of seated overhead press-MAKE SURE that you do this with the back braced-very important. I think most seated press machines stink in their design. You dont want the back of the unit to come up in higher than your back-if it does, you cant get your head out of the way of the bar. I also suggest doing the seated presses starting from the bottom position and not where someone hands it to you from the overhead position, and then you bring it down and back up-you want to mimic the mechanics of the standing overhead press as much as possible. I would advise you doing a seated 80 degree incline press as a core exercise. This takes the lower back out of the it and really allows you to get used to lifting heavy weights overhead. I believe that if I had never done the seated presses and the 80 degree presses, I would have NEVER gone over 300 in the overhead press. The other movement is a heavy push press done in the power rack. You put the pins a couple inches below the starting position. squat down and get set with the bar, explode up ( just 2-3 inches) elevate the bar to just over the top of your head, and then slowly count to 5 on the way down, set it on the pins, explode and repeat for 6 total reps-this is the most brutal thing I have ever done for the upper body-you wil likely need a spotter ( just to yell at you, rather than for safety reasons) but this will do as much to improve your overhead press as anything I know.
Keith W.
Keith-In an article you wrote you recommended rotating sessions of 3x10, 3x5 and 3x3. I am not sure whether you would still recommend such an approach or how you would integrate it into the above advice.
One more thing. Can you be more specific about the static ab training? What exercises are you using and for how long are you maintaining the hold?
I offered the above advice as an addition to a regime of conventional overhead presses-they could be done on a different day or as adjunct movements-I think the total tonnage/rotating rep concept is absolute gold and applicable to just about everything-there is nothing magic in the numbers, any set will do, its that fact that you are doing a different rep scheme each week, all of which help the other two sessions.
as for static ab work, I like to hold things over my head, such as two dumbells, or a weighted keg-and take walks until I cant keep the weight elevated, then I rest for 10 second and keep moving. I do some ab movements that are hard do describe, but look very similar to very slow crunches and done with hold weight over my head and in variety of positions-just about anything will do though.
hope that helps
Keith-thanks for that.
There are a number of useful recommendations and potentially a lot of work. Would it be too much trouble to set out a sample week illustrating how all the types of work-including rotating reps and total tonnage- could be integrated? I am a little unclear about how best to set up the training week from the information you have given. Thanks in advance.
thanks a lot for the help Keith…great stuff…exactly what i needed…
i do feel stronger with a narrower grip…i haven’t tried the staggered stance but it sounds good for lower back support.
I want to add another thanks to Keith. I have long been fascinated by the overhead press (probably since I was 4 years old), and as leg injuries now plague me, I keep thinking of focusing on the overhead press. I have a couple of questions. First, what are people’s experiences with using some layback? I find that by fairly mildly arching backwards I can add a great deal to my press. I know it is not that strict, but is it terribly dangerous? Also, I have been using a stance with me feet even with one another, but will the staggard stance effect my lower back uneavenly, if i lean backwards a bit.
Finally, my overhead press seems to move in little, random jumps–for a very long time I was stuck around 185, and then one day I went into the gym, did 195 for a triple, and in three weeks, my press was at 215. Now it has been more or less stuck at 215-220 for a bit over a month. Anyone have any ideas as to why my press keeps stalling, and then makes jumps (also getting to 185 happend in a very short time after being stuck at 135ish for a long time).
I would like to see the question “how much can you press?” Return to refering to the Overhead lifts. This is much more indicitive of your strength levels-and week points will become glaringly obvious.
I used to have a ton of shoulder problems-which dissapeared when I quit benching. Standing overhead lifting forces even development on Both sides of the body, and slams the lats, shoulders, tri’s, and upper back stabalizers so important for benching. I have not benched consistently for around 6 Years, and can still do around 400 (which is funny-because when I stopped I was stuck at 300). If you absolutely must bench-try floor presses. Having to stop half way down is much easier on the rotator cuffs, and you should be able to use a lot more weight. I used 550 the other day on a 2" bar. This is a weight that a tall guy like me never thought i could budge.
Nice tips you really know your stuff .
A weekly overhead press routine largely depends on whether you are focusing on improving the overhead press as a primary exercise, or if it is a secondary/adjunct movemement, such as in a powerlifting routine.
I have never liked to state “X” number of workouts per week, because recovery times vary from week to week as dicated by your schedule (especially as you get older and have more responsibilities)but as a general rule, doing 3 overhead pressing workouts in a 12-15 day period works very well-here is an example
Day 1, Wkt 1 Overhead Press 3x10, total tonnage
Day 6, Wkt 2 Overhead Press, 3x5, 80 degree incline, 1x5, 1x3
Day 12 Wkt 3 Overhead Press, 3x3, Power Rack Partials,
Day 16, Start Over
Now, this would be done along with the rest of your routine, however you set up your workouts-I prefer Full Body, Push-Pull, but that is just a personal preference.
Total Tonnage Explanation
3x10, warm-up, then select a weight that you can do for an all out set of ten, lets say its 140x10, after a couple of minutes rest, you figure out how much you can leave on the bar and still get ten reps with, in most cases it will be less tahan 140, so lets say 130, you get ten hard reps, third set, keep as much weight on the bar and get ten more reps, it might be 125, so you add your weight as follows:
140x10 1400
130x10 1300
125x10 1250
total tonnage 3950
the next time you do 3x10, which will be in about two weeks, you mission is to increase the total tonnage within those 3 sets,
next workout, 3x5
next 3x3
then start over and always work on improving the tonnage
Hope that helps and is not too confusing
Keith W.
Keith,
Excellent tips - thanks. T-Mag Mods - consider Keith for poster of the week.
While I am not a “bench press hater,” I prefer the overhead press to the bench. My bench has always sucked but I’ve always had good overhead strength - I don’t know why that is. Like Keith mentioned, since switching to a narrower clean grip, my overhead strength has really improved. I also find that the strength I gain from overhead work carries over to increases in the bench, so I don’t loose any bench press strength from concentrating on overhead work.
I might change my training to a regular SQ/BP/DL split and either do overheads after benches or on a separate bench-assistance day where i’d work shoulders hard and high volume triceps.
I haven’t been doing much overhead pressing lately, but all this talk has motivated me to get back into it!
Part of the reason I quit doing it was because I had come across so much info explaining how overhead pressing is BAD for your shoulders, bones grinding against bones, body wasn’t designed to press overhead, etc. I suppose there may be some truth to that, but I would think that as long as I’m not going heavy too often, I probably wont have problems. Any thoughts on that? Any ideas on how to make overhead pressing easier on your shoulders, such as using partial reps (not fully locking out or going to the bottom of the range of motion)?