Overhead Press: Tips and Techniques

With more and more of us setting up home gyms and lifting more than ever, we had a chat with Strength and Conditioning coach, Jay West, to see what tips he could pass on to help you get stronger and stay safe in your space at home. 

We're looking at the overhead press! Some common faults and how to fix them and what sort of sets and reps you should be working on depending on your goals. 

There a few types of overhead press, the two most popular being the strict press, where we only recruit the muscles of the shoulder to perform the press and the push press, where we use leg drive to accelerate the bar overhead. 

Keep a natural curve in your spine whilst taking the bar overhead by engaging the core muscles and glutes to prevent leaning back. Ideally the shoulder should finish directly over the hips, so we're not pushing the hips forward as we press. If you have poor shoulder mobility you may need to practice some accessory work so you can efficiently move the bar to the overhead position. 

The bar should finish directly over the crown of your head and not out in front of the head. This is something we see often in classes and in the gym and is ultimately not good for your shoulders, leading to long term injury. 
The overhead press is a great movement to assist your bench press in terms of strength building so try and mix this in with your bench programme to maximise your results. 

Thanks to Jay West, our in house Strength & Conditioning and Olympic Weight Lifting coach for his help advice.

You can find Jay on the lifting platform at Your Space Hoyland if you want to have a chat with him!