How far do you usually bring the bar down on this exercise? I was working in with someone last night who was doing considerable weight but he was only bringing the bar down about 2 inches down and had a spotter all over the bar. When I pressed 20 pounds less, bringing the bar to my chest, he told me I was going to injure myself and wasn’t “hitting my shoulders” properly. I don’t understand how lifting more weight than you can handle for a tiny ROM is less dangerous than lifting through the full ROM with less weight, but am I missing something?
I take it down to chin level, any lower and my left shoulder starts nagging me from a previous injury.
I do agree though, a 2" range of motion is pretty useless.
Ears - chin level for most people works well, assuming the head is held relatively neutral or looks up slightly. Some can bring it down farther and be fine, others can not. If were you to look at yourself from the side, your elbows should be under the bar throughout the ROM. The issue with going too deep is for a lot of people the elbows must rotate back at the bottom (this would look like you were doing an incline press), and this can put strain on the shoulder joint.
Clearly a 2" ROM is just a partial, as is anything that stops above the eyes in my opinion.
[quote]Tim Henriques wrote:
Ears - chin level for most people works well, assuming the head is held relatively neutral or looks up slightly. Some can bring it down farther and be fine, others can not. If were you to look at yourself from the side, your elbows should be under the bar throughout the ROM. The issue with going too deep is for a lot of people the elbows must rotate back at the bottom (this would look like you were doing an incline press), and this can put strain on the shoulder joint.
Clearly a 2" ROM is just a partial, as is anything that stops above the eyes in my opinion.[/quote]
this is perfect right here.
you need to post more over in the cell. most of what’s said over there just makes me laugh.
i’m always telling people to keep their elbows down and take a more narrow than bench grip to allow for this. also, like you said, any lower than chin level and it becomes more of an incline press.
[quote]maraudermeat wrote:
you need to post more over in the cell. most of what’s said over there just makes me laugh.
i’m always telling people to keep their elbows down and take a more narrow than bench grip to allow for this. also, like you said, any lower than chin level and it becomes more of an incline press.
[/quote]
I’ll try buddy.
Did you see that info about the Hardcore Powerlifting meet next year? Have you thought about doing it? I think it would be right up your alley
Chest. Anything else is a partial. You can justify doing less than full ROM due to an injury, but it is still less than ideal.
Yep i start racked on the shoulders (similar to front squat).
Thanks for the comments. I’ve never had strains or uncomfortable soreness from shoulder press but I’ll make sure I’m keeping my elbows under the bar. I’ve always preferred the full ROM but I’ll see how chin-level works for me.
[quote]Tim Henriques wrote:
maraudermeat wrote:
you need to post more over in the cell. most of what’s said over there just makes me laugh.
i’m always telling people to keep their elbows down and take a more narrow than bench grip to allow for this. also, like you said, any lower than chin level and it becomes more of an incline press.
I’ll try buddy.
Did you see that info about the Hardcore Powerlifting meet next year? Have you thought about doing it? I think it would be right up your alley[/quote]
looks good to me. i have the World’s in a little over two weeks then i have a bench only in November. If i can get my raw total up into the 1900’s before Christmas, i will definitely do it.
[quote]chitown34 wrote:
I was working in with someone last night who was doing considerable weight but he was only bringing the bar down about 2 inches down and had a spotter all over the bar. When I pressed 20 pounds less, bringing the bar to my chest, he told me I was going to injure myself and wasn’t “hitting my shoulders” properly. [/quote]
This is why 99.99% of the time you should never listen to anybody in the gym. My guess would be that this same guy would do that 1/8th squats and then tell you that you’re going to ruin your knees if you do a proper Ass-2-The-Grass squat.
Full ROM !!
[quote]maraudermeat wrote:
looks good to me. i have the World’s in a little over two weeks then i have a bench only in November. If i can get my raw total up into the 1900’s before Christmas, i will definitely do it.
[/quote]
Good luck at your upcoming meets. A 1900 raw total is awesome!
[quote]Tim Henriques wrote:
maraudermeat wrote:
looks good to me. i have the World’s in a little over two weeks then i have a bench only in November. If i can get my raw total up into the 1900’s before Christmas, i will definitely do it.
Good luck at your upcoming meets. A 1900 raw total is awesome![/quote]
i will do my best.
thanks for the kind words!!
down to shoulders, sometimes I get funny and bring it down below chest
not everyone needs to use the same range of motion or workout style. we should all perform an exercise in a manner that allows us to feel the most stimulation in the targeted muscle.
check out some of dennis wolfs’ training videos, he seems to do only the bottom half of a shoulder press, yet it works for him. many of the biggest guys use what people think is ‘incorrect form’.
[quote]hypnotoad wrote:
not everyone needs to use the same range of motion or workout style. we should all perform an exercise in a manner that allows us to feel the most stimulation in the targeted muscle.
check out some of dennis wolfs’ training videos, he seems to do only the bottom half of a shoulder press, yet it works for him. many of the biggest guys use what people think is ‘incorrect form’.
[/quote]
This same method is often used for chest presses as well and attempts to isolate the targeted muscle (no tricep). It is a very effective. The OP is some ‘expert’ suggesting the top portion only for delts? If you told me you wanted to do this in ‘overload fashion’ for tricep…maybe; but the top range for delts??
[quote]BlueCollarTr8n wrote:
hypnotoad wrote:
not everyone needs to use the same range of motion or workout style. we should all perform an exercise in a manner that allows us to feel the most stimulation in the targeted muscle.
check out some of dennis wolfs’ training videos, he seems to do only the bottom half of a shoulder press, yet it works for him. many of the biggest guys use what people think is ‘incorrect form’.
This same method is often used for chest presses as well and attempts to isolate the targeted muscle (no tricep). It is a very effective. The OP is some ‘expert’ suggesting the top portion only for delts? If you told me you wanted to do this in ‘overload fashion’ for tricep…maybe; but the top range for delts??
[/quote]
Yes, that’s what he was saying. If it was only one instance I wouldn’t bother asking but I’ve seen numerous people do only the top portion of this lift and I seem to be in the minority that does the full ROM. I guess olympic lifters are going to have horrible shoulders because they have to jerk from the clean position…
Down to the collar bone, the same place I hold the bar in jerks and frontsquats.
The 2" range of motion is actually mostly triceps.
Thanks for the vids, Rippetoe knows his stuff.
[quote]BlueCollarTr8n wrote:
hypnotoad wrote:
not everyone needs to use the same range of motion or workout style. we should all perform an exercise in a manner that allows us to feel the most stimulation in the targeted muscle.
check out some of dennis wolfs’ training videos, he seems to do only the bottom half of a shoulder press, yet it works for him. many of the biggest guys use what people think is ‘incorrect form’.
This same method is often used for chest presses as well and attempts to isolate the targeted muscle (no tricep). It is a very effective. The OP is some ‘expert’ suggesting the top portion only for delts? If you told me you wanted to do this in ‘overload fashion’ for tricep…maybe; but the top range for delts??
[/quote]
did the guy doing top half partials have big shoulders? if he did, then he should continue doing what works for him. we never got that information from the OP, though.