Easily the most difficult of all the core barbell lifts to get strong in is the overhead press.
Why?
Too many reasons to compile into an email I am afraid.
But I shall give you one:
The overhead press not only involves moving the bar a great distance away from your torso, but it requires you do so with comparatively small and weak muscles (the deltoids, triceps, and upper portion of the pectoralis major).
Despite all that, with time and practice, it’s perfectly possible to shift decent loads (healthy adults under the age of 50 or thereabouts should aspire to press at least their bodyweight for a quality single). However, these heights are rarely attained due not to any great deficit in chest, shoulder, or arm strength but rather a shaky foundation.
By that I mean, absent powerful legs to keep you rooted to the ground and a tough back to keep you upright, it’s impossible to maintain the pencil-straight bar path required to get respectable weights overhead.
Worse:
Attempts to do so could potentially result in severe injury to the lower back as you automatically curl over like a backwards letter C to bring more pec major into play to get the bar through the sticking point.
Or you might end up missing the lift and dumping the bar on your forehead (have had this happen to me a couple of times in my early days trying to brute force it instead of developing a proper foundation to press from).
The solution is, unsurprisingly, to devote a chunk of time and effort into building a robust back and strong legs. Both of which will aid you greatly in becoming one of (if not the) only people in your gym who can standing barbell overhead press weights of note and your pursuit of getting strong and in shape in general.
To aid you in this, I have a book.
It is cleverly titled “The Back and Legs Bundle”, and it is on sale for the next few days.
A couple of things to note:
1) The book is expensive as far as books go, even with the discount (but it’s still cheaper than a large bag of whey protein from some brands to give you some context), and,
2) This is a compilation of two issues of my paper and ink newsletter “The Phil Tyreman Letter” plus some bonus material. So if you own one or both issues of the newsletter, you need to carefully consider if the content you don’t already own is worth the asking price.
A detailed breakdown of what’s inside is on the below-linked page, and you can claim the discount by entering the code HORSE at the checkout:
https://philtyreman.co.uk/bundle/
Thank you,
Phil Tyreman