Pressing Requires More Than Stability And Mobility

Pressing doesn't just require stability and mobility. If you associate those words with BOSU balls and reach for something heavy when you hear them, relax: your time has come. Pressing well builds strength: but you need some strength to press at all. Get a solid foundation and the press will reward you in everything from lifting to throwing. Skip ahead and you'll find yourself lifting your wallet and throwing some money to a physiotherapist. 

Incline Presses: Set up a bench with as sharp an incline as you can cope with. If you're used to bench pressing, try starting at 45° and moving more upright over time. Press with a barbell if you can, though dumbbells are useful too. This should allow you to approach an overhead press slowly while retaining load and still getting a strength workout even as you move toward the new movement.

Landmine press: This is also known as the standing bar press. You'll set up a barbell with weights at one end, and the other end in a corner. If you don't want to wreck the corner wrap a towel round the end of the barbell. Start with the weighted end of the barbel level with where you'd rack the bar for overhead pressing, then press overhead. You'll typically start with the bar on one side and switch sides. Landmine presses allow you to use weight and get a feel for the overhead press, mirroring the stresses and strains on the whole body, which doesn't really happen with the incline press, but without the true overhead press' technical demands.

What about if you already press pretty well, and you want to improve?

You could try the SOTS press.

SOTS presses come to us from the world of Olympic weightlifting, where they're also known as 'press in snatches' and are often used as a prep exercise for snatching. But we're going to do them slightly differently.

You might want to start with a pair of dumbbells. Front squat, with the dumbbells held in the rack position. Then, in the bottom position of the front squat, press them overhead. When you're doing this for 3-5 solid reps with dumbbells, move on to doing it with an empty bar or a broomstick, and aim for a light bar at the end of 6 weeks. Then, see what it's done for your overhead pressing!

Some people can crank out perfect military presses on a daily basis. Others can't do the movement, whatever the load, more than once or twice a week without complaints from their joints. And some of us have a shoulder structure that means it's never going to be safe to overhead press. If that's you, don't worry about it. Landmine presses and incline presses can largely replace the overhead press in terms of outcomes without building up a backlog of nagging pain, tightness and dysfunction - but sadly, also without the satisfaction!

See Also: Weightlifting: Lift Slow Or Lift Fast, That Is The Question Now

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