Shoulder Press

Without any doubt, the overhead press, known also as the shoulder press, is one of the best exercises for shoulders. It is very useful for those looking forward to competing in weightlifting events, as well as it is useful for the shoulder’s development for those looking forward to competing in bodybuilding events.
This exercise is also known as Military Press, although this name is rarely used nowadays. It was used, though, some time ago, when the it was a strength test for the troops.

Movement

First of all, it’s important to know that there are a lot of variations for doing this exercise: you can do it with a bar or with dumbbells, seated or standing, simoultaneous or not, or even using the Arnold style(using 2 dumbbells, during the movement, they are brought in front of the shoulders and not in lateral, in order to increase the motion range).

For the sake of our discussion, whenever we will use here shoulder press without any additional details, we will refer to the classic seated barbell variation.

Basically, the movement is like this: the bar is taken from the rack, and it is placed on the anterior deltoids. It is recommended to use the classic grip(both palms placed underneath the bar while the thumb is covering the bar), as it is the safest one from all the other grips, especially if heavy weights are used. Afterwards, the bar is pushed until the elbows get locked, and after an 1 sec pause, the bar must come back in the initial position. Depending of the purpose, the same movement can be done in sets of 1-12 reps.

Here is a video with the correct form of executing the barbell shoulder press. As well, you will see a couple of variations, just to make an idea about what variations can be done from time to time.
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In this second video, you will see the classic form of this exercise from different angles, so you can figure out how to stand and how to execute the movement properly.

Overhead Press Tips

The first thing that must be mentioned is the fact that, during the exercise, other muscles are involved too, and not only the shoulders. Basically, depending of the chosen grip width, triceps and shoulders can be involved in quite a big percentage. The closer the grip is, the more implicated the triceps and the chest will be. As well, the larger the grip is, the more implicated the shoulders will be.

Still, in order to obtain maximum results in terms of strength and muscular mass gains, the grip should always be taken equal with the deltoids’ width. This way, both of the shoulders and the triceps will be activated, but the triceps will only help the shoulder to press a bigger weight. In time, once the athletes will get some experience, they will learn how to obtain more tension in their shoulders and how to obtain more from the overhead press, but that’s just a matter of time and practice.

Injury Prevention

Although shoulder press is the best exercise for the deltoids, it doesn’t mean that it is completely safe. Before starting to use this exercise, all the athletes MUST spend some time doing warm up movements for the shoulders, especially arm rotations and push press movements with the empty barbell.

For better protection, wrist wraps are recommended, and also a belt for the medium area of the body. This will ensure more stability, and therefore, the injury risk will decrease seriously.

Variations

As we’ve said in the above lines, the basic shoulder press can be executed in various forms:

1. Bent Press: basically, the bar is pressed overhead while the body is bent. The upper position is based on a full body lockout. However, due to the fact that it is more of an one hand exercise, it isn’t done nowadays too often. However, it used to be very popular in the past.
2. Seated Dumbbell press: like its name says, this shoulder exercise is based on dumbbells. In order to use only your shoulders, the seat must be set to a maximum 75 degrees angle; if it’s set lower, the chest will be used more, and therefore, the muscles will risk to not develop that much.
3. Behind the neck press: this movement is pretty much the same as the classic overhead press. The only difference is the fact that the bar gets placed behind the neck. In order to prevent any injuries, during the lift, the bar shouldn’t go lower than the ears level, as this movement tends to put a lot of pressure on the shoulder joints.