Nobody With a Heavy OHP Has a Weak Upper Body.
There are few blanket statements I use when it comes to training and fitness. Most protocols, styles, and movements come with their own bag of nuances. But some things typically hold true across the board; and overhead pressing being a king of upper body size and strength is one of them. Don’t believe me? Let me break it down…
-It recruits your entire upper body to press up and control down
-Standing or seated, it requires torso and shoulder stability/control
-You can progressively overload it with different variations
-It works as both a static and dynamic movement pattern
-Being one of the base exercises for Olympic lifting
-And honestly… the heavy presses just look and feel cool as shit
“Training increases muscle mass, bone mass, stature, endurance, and tolerance against fatigue.”
Making It Your Primary Press
The majority of the time lifters treat the OHP as an accessory in their program. Almost an afterthought to help get some extra shoulder volume in. Giving the bench press a permanent spot as their main pressing exercise. The issue is that you have it backwards… a strong bench wont give you a better overhead press, but a strong overhead press will increase your bench. Don’t believe me? Try it out for a couple months. It’ll give you stronger shoulders and triceps, driving power, and even better scapular control. Which all feeds directly into your bench pressing.
You don't always have to bench more to bench more**
Some of the most impressive and jacked pressers in the world have made the overhead press a cornerstone of their training. For instance, take Dmitry Klokov (pictured below) a decorated Olympic weightlifter, and one of the best pressers you'll ever see with a barbell. The man presses heavy, he presses often, and his upper body development shows every bit of it. The wild part is he isn’t doing it for aesthetics, but as you can see, it came anyway.
The overhead press rewards consistency and progressive overloading.
Make it a staple. Trust me.
Stop sleeping on the overhead press. Do it consistently, structure it as a main lift, and then watch what happens. The strength will increase, the size will show, and your bench will probably thank you too.
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Nobody with a heavy OHP has a weak upper body.
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