Thursday, July 26, 2012

Improving Your Press

For guys with long forearm who have trouble with overhead pressing, you might find this article useful:

http://startingstrength.com/articles/learning_press_rippetoe.pdf

Basically instead of trying to force the bar to rest against your shoulders which compromises your leverages, you set up with optimal leverages for the triceps and as a result the bar is suspended in mid-air, but this won't be an issue if your triceps are touching your lats, and everything is tight and flexed (triceps, biceps, lats and glutes)

You can see me pressing this way here



If you compare to someone with shorter forearms, you can see how the position of the triceps are pretty much the same (pause at 0:09 for the first video, and 0:12 for the second video below)



Does it actually help to press this way? Well yes, because:
1. You reduce the distance the bar has to travel
2. The trriceps are in a more efficient position to press
3. There is less layback

I have pressed with the bar resting on the top of my chest before, and I found I needed much more power off the chest and I had much more layback, but with this technique I dont need as much power off the bottom and layback is reduced by quite a bit.

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