Master the Overhead Barbell Press: Why It’s Essential and How to Perfect It

Why the Overhead Barbell Press Is a Game-Changer for Strength Training

Periodically I have to dynamite yet another of my precious preconceptions. George Orwell called them “our smelly little orthodoxies.” My most recent revelation occurred when I decided, on a whim, to add overhead barbell pressing back into my extremely limited menu of free-weight progressive resistance exercises.

I had jettisoned overhead pressing years ago. My working theory was that bench pressing, especially narrow-grip benching, essentially worked the same muscles — upper pecs, delts, triceps — as overhead pressing and therefore pressing overhead was redundant. I reverse-engineered a quite clever rationale in order to arrive at a preordained conclusion: it was okay to ditch overhead pressing.

I was wrong.

The overhead press asked questions my bench press had stopped asking. It exposed a glaring weakness. It revealed an imbalance. It forced me to relearn a lift I had once respected and then foolishly abandoned.

Machines Are Useful — But They Are Not the Same Test

Speaking of precious preconceptions and smelly orthodoxies, I need to take a quick minute to puncture the biggest overhead pressing myth of them all: that results gleaned from overhead pressing using exercise machines are equal to the results derived from overhead pressing using free weights such as barbells, dumbbells and kettlebells.

Seated shoulder press machines are plush and expensive and found in every commercial training facility, every YMCA, and every fitness club in the land. Overhead press machines are the lite beer of progressive resistance training.

Machines are better than nothing. They can build muscle, provide safe assistance work, and allow trainees to train a pressing pattern when balance, skill, injury history or fatigue makes free weights a poor choice. But they cannot hold a proverbial candle to the muscle-building, strength-infusing, coordination-demanding results of serious barbell, dumbbell, and kettlebell overhead pressing when the goal is free-weight strength.

Machines make heavy weights light. Free weights make light weights heavy. When it comes to barbell-relevant strength, choose the latter.

Machines reduce the third dimension of tension: the need to control side-to-side movement. Machines use locked-in, frozen grooves that allow stabilizers to stay relatively dormant. Barbells and dumbbells force the stabilizers to earn their keep. Beware the seductive siren song of exercise machines, so sultry and coaxing: “Come…sit down…push in the most relaxed manner imaginable.” Resistance training made easier is often resistance training made less transferable.

Switching from machine pressing to dumbbell pressing can be shocking. It is an ego blow when you discover that though you can press 150 pounds of resistance for 8 to 10 reps using your favorite overhead press machine, you struggle to push a pair of 40-pound dumbbells for 8 proper reps.

If you are a machine presser, switch to free weights for a training cycle and see what happens. You might find, as I did, that the old-fashioned path exposes weaknesses the machine politely concealed.

The Weakness I Could No Longer Ignore

My mistake was quitting overhead pressing altogether. On a total whim a few months back I decided to undertake an overhead dumbbell press workout. It was only then that I discovered how freaking shoulder weak I was.

I also discovered I had a bad strength imbalance between the overhead pushing strength of my right arm and my left arm. This had gone totally undetected. All my flat benching was evenly pushed with zero obvious imbalances, yet in the overhead dumbbell press my left arm lagged a full 30 pounds behind the pushing ability of my right arm.

I was shocked. There was no pain or discomfort, just left-arm overhead pressing weakness. How or why, I know not. I devised a remedial strategy.

My Remedial Dumbbell Press Strategy

The good news was that I was not injured. My left-arm overhead press was so weak, poundage-wise, that I could work the weak-ass arm often. It takes a lot less time to recover from tiny poundage than big poundage.

Five times a week I would walk to the unheated garage and perform three to four sets in the left-arm overhead press. I would hang on tight to the vertical pillar of my power rack with my free right hand. I stood at attention and pressed the light dumbbells overhead: slowly, precisely, using an exaggerated range of motion. I emphasized a hard lockout on every left-handed rep.

I worked up to one all-out, super-strict set, then quit. I hit positive failure around reps 8 to 10. Within three weeks I had brought the weak sister left arm to within 10 pounds of the stronger right.

Then I began overhead pressing with a barbell.

Again, I was disappointingly weak. No arm lag, but weak overall. How could this be? My overhead press was a pathetic 50% of my narrow-grip flat bench press. I had erroneously thought it would be more like 80%.

The Barbell Press Off the Rack

My remedial barbell overhead press strategy was to work up to a lone, all-out set in the barbell press. I wanted to be unable to complete another clean rep around the fifth or sixth rep. This rep range gives me the balance of results I sought.

Five- or six-rep sets split the difference between low-rep grind power, 1 to 3 reps, and the hypertrophy-inducing attributes associated with higher-rep sets, 7 to 12 reps. The five-rep set provides balanced results. Ideally, I want to barely complete rep 5 or, at most, barely make rep 6.

I might need three or four warm-up sets in preparation for the top set. It takes me that long to get my head screwed on straight and my psyche going.

If I make 5 or 6 reps with a weight, I move the training poundage up five total pounds in the next session. I usually need to butt heads with a particular poundage for three or four sessions before I can move it up. Since my barbell pressing weights are light, I hit them twice a week.

So far, I have bumped my starting overhead press poundage up by 45 pounds, five pounds at a time. Along the way I have really gotten to love the exercise — again.

These overhead presses are done off the rack. Set the Olympic bar in a squat rack or power rack. Face it. Step under the bar. Rack the bar across the front shoulders. Stand erect and step back. Spread your feet to establish a strong push base.

Once you have stepped back and set up, flex your thighs and glutes hard. This is your push platform and you do not want to shoot a cannon from a canoe. Everything is tight and tense. Brace the trunk. Keep the ribs controlled. Now lay back just enough to let the bar clear the face as you push the bar overhead. This is a small controlled adjustment, not a circus backbend.

Press up and slightly back. Lock the triceps out hard. Finish tall with the bar balanced over the body. Lower with resistance and control. When the bar returns to the shoulders, explode it upward for the next rep.

Start with the empty barbell and perform perfect five-rep sets. This protocol ingrains technique. The overhead press is a technique lift and gets better with repeated practice.

How to Reset an Overhead Press Plateau

Never corrupt the technique in order to complete a hard rep. That is when accidents and injuries occur.

When you hit a pressing plateau, drop the poundage back to 60% and begin anew. If you were stuck at 100 pounds for 5 reps and, after many sessions, cannot get past 100 x 5, you have plateaued. In the next session, drop the weight to 60 pounds and rep out in the overhead press. A man with a 100 x 5 overhead barbell press might get 10 to 12 reps with 60 pounds.

Each subsequent overhead press session, add five total pounds to the bar and rep out again. Keep going in this fashion until you end up back at five reps again, only now using more poundage.

I would suggest any overhead press odyssey begin with standing overhead dumbbell presses. Check for imbalances. Graduate to the barbell press off the rack. Ingrain the technique first.

Seated Pressing Variations and Behind-Neck Pressing

Experiment with seated variations only after mastering standing dumbbells and the standing barbell overhead press. You have to graduate to the seated variations.

The other valid free-weight overhead presses include the seated overhead dumbbell press, seated barbell front press, and seated barbell press behind the neck. These are powerhouse movements when used by lifters who have the shoulder mobility, thoracic position, and technical control to perform them correctly.

Great benchers such as Ed Coan and Joe Ladnier loved the seated press behind the neck. Old gym accounts credit both men with enormous behind-neck pressing power. They felt the PBN was a top bench press assistance exercise. Coan’s behind-neck pressing numbers, as relayed in strength circles, were astounding.

That does not mean every lifter needs to press behind the neck. The movement is optional. If it hurts, if the neck cranes, if the shoulders cannot find the position, if the bar path feels forced, use the front press, dumbbell press, or another safer variation.

The Bodyweight Overhead Press Standard

Back in the day when overhead pressing was popular, the benchmark for a strong man was to be able to perform a strict overhead barbell press with bodyweight. That remains a goal worthy of pursuit.

A bodyweight overhead press is not required for health, and it is not realistic for every trainee. Age, sex, shoulder structure, training history, injury history, and bodyweight all matter. Yet as an old-school strength standard, it is clean, simple, and brutally honest.

Even if you come close, you maximally muscle up.

Equipment Notes for Overhead Press Training

A serious overhead press setup does not need to be complicated. It needs a dependable bar, stable start height, secure plates, collars and a floor surface appropriate to the room and the work.

For general barbell work, compare Olympic weightlifting bars and a general-purpose option such as the Body-Solid black oxide Olympic weightlifting bar. Use every bar within its stated specifications.

Loading should be secure and repeatable. Lifters can compare weight plates, IRON COMPANY premium rubber bumper plates, and barbell collars. A simple pair of IRON COMPANY Olympic spring collars with plastic grips can help keep plates from wandering during repeated press sets.

Protect the training area. A garage or home-gym press station can benefit from rubber gym mats or a 4 x 6 IRON COMPANY black rubber weight equipment mat, depending on the room, floor, and training style.

The equipment does not build the press. The lifter does. The equipment simply gives the lifter a safer and more honest place to practice.

Safety Note for Overhead Barbell Pressing

Heavy overhead pressing requires sound technique, conservative progression, and attention to pain signals. Do not confuse a small controlled layback with an exaggerated Olympic-style backbend. Do not turn strict pressing into a push press unless that is the intended exercise.

Use a rack height that allows a clean unrack and rerack. Keep collars on the bar. Keep the area clear. Stop for sharp shoulder, elbow, wrist, neck, or back pain; dizziness; numbness; sudden weakness; or loss of normal movement. Behind-neck pressing is optional and should be used only by lifters with the mobility and control to perform it pain-free.

This article is historical and educational strength-training commentary. It is not individualized medical, rehabilitation, or programming advice.

Related Overhead Press Reading

For more on overhead pressing standards and old-school press history, read Bodyweight Overhead Barbell Press: Gold Standard and Standing Overhead Barbell Press.

RAW with Marty Gallagher, J.P. Brice, and Jim Steel Podcast.

About the Author: Marty Gallagher

As an athlete Marty Gallagher is a national and world champion in Olympic lifting and powerlifting. He was a world champion team coach in 1991 and coached Black's Gym to five national team titles. He's also coached some of the strongest men on the planet including Kirk Karwoski when he completed his world record 1,003 lb. squat. Today he teaches the US Secret Service and Tier 1 Spec Ops on how to maximize their strength in minimal time. As a writer since 1978 he’s written for Powerlifting USA, Milo, Flex Magazine, Muscle & Fitness, Prime Fitness, Washington Post, Dragon Door and now IRON COMPANY. He’s also the author of multiple books including Purposeful Primitive, Strong Medicine, Ed Coan’s book Coan, The Man, the Myth, the Method and numerous others. Read the Marty Gallagher biography here.