I could not find anything in the search so I thought I’d ask here. I was wondering about elbow position in overhead press and bent over row movements. For instance, when doing military presses, should my elbows be tucked in or flaired out? Should my elbows be up high or down low? What if I use a wide grip, should they be tucked or flaired? What would be the differrence in the exercise between tucked and flaired elbows? Do these suggestions change when going from a barbell to dumbells? What about bent over rows(same questions as above)? I am pretty confused on this subject. I would appreciate any help you guys can give me.
You can vary it any which way you feel. It’s best to change the angles you are training anyway. However, generally on over-head pressing, such as the military, I feel elbows wide hits the anterior and lateral delts the best. From my experience, the more forward the elbows go the more the stress is on the anteroir delt (front) and not enough on the lateral. Since the front delt gets hit with nearly every pressing movement, especially for chest, I believe it’s easy to over-work it and under-work the lateral head when the elbows are too far forward. Take for instance the Arnold Presses stress the anterior head almost solely at the bottom position. I don’t particularly like to perform/prescribe them, because the movement can be too stressful on the front delts and not stressful enough on the laterals, because you have to use less weight with this movement.
TopSirloin