Just wondering, are those of you who are in Stage 2....are you using the Olympic barbell for this exericse? I move into Stage 2 next week and this morning I was trying this and a few other of the new moves that are in that Stage. I tried this one with an empty Olympic barbell.
I feel like a wimp...this move is going to be tough. I have always been weak in the shoulders with overhead press. My gym only has the 45 pound barbell, so it's either that or use DB"s if I want to go with a lower weight.
For some reason, this felt really awkward and hard on my wrists.
I'm using the 5 ft oly bar with plates until I can do the 7 ft 45 lb oly. I'm totally hindered by the lack of my shoulder strength. Your gym doesn't have ANY other BB's?
I hear ya Jodi. I'm not using the Oly bar, cause I don't have one at home, but had to bring my weights way down to 30lbs total. I'm the same with the wrists...had a heck of a time. I'm doing the 2nd w/o on Friday, after reading some info from LIsa and will check back with you all.
Perhaps my elbows weren't high enough, though I still don't get that the whole placement bar thing at the shoulder level....my chin & nose keep getting in the way
I was really intimidated by the push-press combo too. I tried it with a 30lb barbell and found it pretty easy so I tried with a 40lb barbell, and surprised myself greatly that I could do it! And with relative ease, so next time I'm definitely going for the big bar. And I was only doing 15s and 20s for the shoulder presses in stage1, so I was pleasently surprised... you might be too :-)
Tomorrow, I'm going to take a look around the gym. I only think they have the 7 foot Olympic barbells and a couple of barbells that are mainly for bicep curls...ya, know, with the bends in the bar for your grip. (don't know the technical name for those)
I do think there might be a black barbell that is kept upright by some of the plates. You seldom see anyone using it, so hopefully it's a lighter weight then the Oly. one. The gym I go to is a really small gym. It is in a store-front location and everything is in one room. For the smallness of it, it has pretty much everything I need.
Just wondering, are those of you who are in Stage 2....are you using the Olympic barbell for this exericse?
For some reason, this felt really awkward and hard on my wrists.
i did these on monday and started with the olympic bar. for the second (and third sets - 'cause i'm a dope and did three sets of everything) i moved up to 65 pounds. but i was doing 30 pound dumbbell presses in stage one and lisa did say that with the push-press we should be able to add a bit of weight from those because of the stability of the barbell.
and mine were pretty awkward too - had a tough time rolling the bar back and forth from my fingers to the meat of my hand for the press.
This is a really awkward and difficult exercise. There's something about the entire movement that doesn't feel natural, even though it really seems like it SHOULD feel natural. I used dbs though (strength imbalance) and didn't make much progress (I've finished stage 2) 20 ->25lb dbs. But military presses have always been my downfall and I've been stalled on them for ages.
I know Lisa~ posted this before, but here it is again. It was very helpful to me. At minute 5 or so the movement itself is shown. The push phase is not exactly a military press. The bar is propelled overhead from the bottom (glutes, hips, quads, etc.). That's why one should push more than military press. Practice makes perfect.
Yes, Nat, really get your legs into this one ladies. Dip at the bottom and then as your legs drive upward (triple extension) you push the bar overhead. You should be able to do more than you can shoudler press because your legs are "helping".
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Tomorrow, I'm going to take a look around the gym. I only think they have the 7 foot Olympic barbells and a couple of barbells that are mainly for bicep curls...ya, know, with the bends in the bar for your grip. (don't know the technical name for those)
EZ-curl bars. Sometimes they're preset bars and sometimes they are made to load plates onto. The plate-loadable version is usually a 15 lb bar (but that does vary with manufacturer).
They're great for this movement. Play around a bit with hand placement and you'll find that for the push press you can put the base of your palm (that meaty spot at the top of your ulna, on the side away from your thumb) right on the outermost bent portion of the bar. It actually makes the wrist angle a bit more comfortable. The bends will be horizontal, rather than vertical like they would be during a biceps curl. I hope that makes sense.
Wow, I hadn't seen that video. I had such a difficult time with this move, concentrating on the "vertical" should help. I think I'll not worry about the elbows so much, his weren't up very high either.
Oh, should we go as fast as he did? I was pretty wobbly and have to work on the balance, but I did not use the speed or force like he did.
Here's the thread where we went through this discussion before. I linked the above video and another one. Someone else linked a Cosgrove article that shows the combo move done as two movements rather than as a thruster.
EZ-curl bars. Sometimes they're preset bars and sometimes they are made to load plates onto. The plate-loadable version is usually a 15 lb bar (but that does vary with manufacturer).
They're great for this movement. Play around a bit with hand placement and you'll find that for the push press you can put the base of your palm (that meaty spot at the top of your ulna, on the side away from your thumb) right on the outermost bent portion of the bar. It actually makes the wrist angle a bit more comfortable. The bends will be horizontal, rather than vertical like they would be during a biceps curl. I hope that makes sense.
Hi
I used the EZ bar for this front squat push press, and it made my life alot easier. I was even able to up the weight a bit using this type of bar instead of a regular one. Don't know why exactly, but it just seemed to fit better for me. Thanks for the info.
I did these with a 30 lb bar on Thursday with no problem but this morning I tried with the 45lb oly bar and it killed my poor puny wrists. I had no issues with the other parts of the push/press at 45 lbs, but having my wrists bent back like that with the weight on them was torture. I had to stop every 3-4 reps to give my wrists a break. Frustrating.
Just did these for the first time today... Much harder than I thought. I grabbed the 60 pound barbell and did one, and it was to heavy. Had to back down to the 50 pound barbell and even at that could barely finish the 10th rep (not saying that's a bad thing). I tried to remember the nice video Natalie linked and use the force of the legs to propell the bar, but I seemed to lose steam about the time the bar reaches the level of my ears, and so the arms had to do the rest of the work. Perhaps this is how it is suppose to be? 50 pounds seems a bit on the light side since I was shoulder pressing about 25 pound dumbells. hmmm.
I did these today for the first time. They were great! I started with the bar by itself. Actually, I did a few presses with the bar first just to make sure I could, and that was fine. So I did the first set with the bar and then added 10 pounds and did the 2nd set.
Thanks for the video and all of the tips! They really helped me feel more comfortable doing this today.
I have more of a fear of breaking my nose with the bar (I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I actually hit my nose with the bar coming down). My advice to anyone doing this is concentrate and don't start laughing because of something you catch out of the corner of your eye.
I did this for the first time yesterday. Fun! I love this exercise. I used the 35 pound preset bar. I tried with the 45 oly, but my arms stopped about 3/4 of the way up. I had only just made it up to 20 pounders in my shoulder raises on my very last set in phase I.
Does anyone else have this horrible fear that you're going to knock your teeth out, or is it just me?
It's not just you, I'm terrified of this happening to me which is partly because I have this weird fear of losing all my teeth. It didn't help that while practicing at home I actually wacked my jaw with the broomstick I was using for the push press. It hurt, but not as much as it probably would if I had been using the oly bar!
I guess I learned my lesson though, because I did these for the first time at the gym on Monday and thankfully, I didn't have any accidents.
I took a tip from Starting Strength that solved my wrist problem: take your pinky out from under the bar. Worked like a charm.
I tried this the other night but the problem is I couldn't get my pinky fingers back under the bar in time to do the press. I pretty much hate this move - it's so frustrating and painful. I might try it with the EZ bar next time.
I tried this the other night but the problem is I couldn't get my pinky fingers back under the bar in time to do the press. I pretty much hate this move - it's so frustrating and painful. I might try it with the EZ bar next time.
Some people have mentioned doing it two steps--you keep the proper arm placement for the squat, then come up, adjust grip, dip down into semi squat and press
I have found that it is easier for me to do this move with the shorter, preloaded bars than with the 45lb Oly. I'm sure that the length of the Oly changes the dynamics because it spreads the weight out. I was actually really pleased with myself on this exercise yesterday because I went below parallel on the squat. That's something I've been working on because my regular squats (from Stage 1) weren't low enough in my opinion. I did notice that sometimes I had a harder time powering up since I was coming from so low, so I think I'm going to stick with the weight I used yesterday (60lbs) and focus on form and on powering up. Now that I'm getting more comfortable with it, I really like this move. It makes me feel powerful and strong.
Push/Press question.
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