Push Press
Trains the Shoulders.
- Equipment
- A barbell and a rack
- Mechanic
- Compound
- Force
- Push
- Level
- Advanced
How to do it
- Set a barbell in a rack at shoulder height and take an overhand grip just outside your shoulders.
- Unrack it onto the front of your shoulders, elbows in front of the bar, feet under your hips.
- Dip by bending the knees a few inches, keeping the torso upright and the bar in place on the shoulders.
- Drive up hard through the legs and let that momentum start the bar upward.
- As the legs finish, press the bar the rest of the way to straight arms overhead.
- Lower it back to the shoulders under control, absorbing it by bending the knees slightly.
Common mistakes
- Dipping by leaning forward. The dip is a short vertical drop from the knees; a forward lean sends the bar away from the body and the press then has to travel around the head instead of past it.
- Dipping too deep. This is a few inches, not a quarter squat — going lower turns it into a slow leg drive that the bar never picks up speed from.
- Pressing before the legs have finished. The two halves overlap in one movement, and starting the arms early means the leg drive is wasted and the shoulders are pressing the whole bar from a standstill.
- Catching the bar on the shoulders with locked knees. Bending the knees as the bar lands is what lets the legs absorb it; taking it on a straight body sends the whole load through the spine.