Best strategy to increase overhead press

KeithReilly

Anyone any opinions on what is the best strategy to increase the standing overhead press?

I'm thinking more along the lines of programming.

Inspector Coptoor

what about pressing more often?
do it twice a week minimum and maybe one day strength based and one volume based day?

something like 5 x 5 linear progression on day 1 and volume at around 45-55% of 1rm for 5 x 10 on day 2, along with some hypertrophy work for rear and lateral delts.

the drifter

what type of training have you been doing up until now and i presume youve hit a wall with it?

Nervous Wreck

Liam Henners257 wrote: »

what about pressing more often?
do it twice a week minimum and maybe one day strength based and one volume based day?

I did this for a good while and it worked pretty well for me.

the drifter

Nervous Wreck wrote: »

I did this for a good while and it worked pretty well for me.

same as... pressed twice a week when i was running smolov 2x5 10kg pb at the end of it.

celticcrash

Dumbells, each arm has to work individually from one another, as
with the straight bar one arm is supporting the other.

KeithReilly

the drifter wrote: »

what type of training have you been doing up until now and i presume youve hit a wall with it?

Training has varied.

The last time I concentrated on increasing my one rep max standing press, I done a smolov for pressing programme I got somewhere on the net. I've the percentages somewhere on a spreadsheet. It was four days of pressing, 9 x 4, 7 x 5, 5 x 7 and 3 by 10 sets if I remember correctly. brought by press to a 1 rm of 80kg. it had been at I'd say 75kg or 77.5kg so while not a massive increase it was an increase.

This is obviously only something you can run with every 6 months or so and get an increase and even at that I don't think you'd continue to get increases even every 6 months for long.

itsallaboutheL

KeithReilly wrote: »

Training has varied.

The last time I concentrated on increasing my one rep max standing press, I done a smolov for pressing programme I got somewhere on the net. I've the percentages somewhere on a spreadsheet. It was four days of pressing, 9 x 4, 7 x 5, 5 x 7 and 3 by 10 sets if I remember correctly. brought by press to a 1 rm of 80kg. it had been at I'd say 75kg or 77.5kg so while not a massive increase it was an increase.

This is obviously only something you can run with every 6 months or so and get an increase and even at that I don't think you'd continue to get increases even every 6 months for long.

Jesus wept. Were you benching at the time?

Tigger

Liam Henners257 wrote: »

what about pressing more often?
do it twice a week minimum and maybe one day strength based and one volume based day?

something like 5 x 5 linear progression on day 1 and volume at around 45-55% of 1rm for 5 x 10 on day 2, along with some hypertrophy work for rear and lateral delts.

this is what i'd do

KeithReilly

itsallaboutheL wrote: »

Jesus wept. Were you benching at the time?

Flat benched but rather than decrease weight I decreased volume so where I would have lifted 5 x 5 I was lifting 3 reps for 5 with same weight. Bench Press incidently increased when I was finished the four weeks. Went from 120 x 5 to 122.5 x 5, again not a massive gain but considering I wasn;t concentrating on bench and had been in fact doing an awful lot less as well as no isolated tricep work there was certainly a positive carryover.

Dathai

Going by a lot of the strongman training logs on other sites, they seem to cut out flat benching and instead do close grip benching and incline benching.

I've **** pressing (due to being awful at lifting and a recovering rotator cuff), but I'd say if you were to train your press one day along with hammering your lats, traps and triceps and then incline bench instead of flat benching on your bench press day and hammering your lats, traps and triceps along with some front and rear delt work, you'll end up seeing your press increase.

This is just from observation of others training.

d'Oracle

KeithReilly wrote: »

Training has varied.

The last time I concentrated on increasing my one rep max standing press, I done a smolov for pressing programme I got somewhere on the net. I've the percentages somewhere on a spreadsheet. It was four days of pressing, 9 x 4, 7 x 5, 5 x 7 and 3 by 10 sets if I remember correctly. brought by press to a 1 rm of 80kg. it had been at I'd say 75kg or 77.5kg so while not a massive increase it was an increase.

This is obviously only something you can run with every 6 months or so and get an increase and even at that I don't think you'd continue to get increases even every 6 months for long.

Hello there.
If you will forgive the wee distraction to your thread, what jumps did you use for this smolov for OH press Lunacy?
Also did you do it 4 days a week or did you space it out a bit?

KeithReilly

Dathai wrote: »

Going by a lot of the strongman training logs on other sites, they seem to cut out flat benching and instead do close grip benching and incline benching.

I've **** pressing (due to being awful at lifting and a recovering rotator cuff), but I'd say if you were to train your press one day along with hammering your lats, traps and triceps and then incline bench instead of flat benching on your bench press day and hammering your lats, traps and triceps along with some front and rear delt work, you'll end up seeing your press increase.

This is just from observation of others training.

What you say makes sense and its something I will probably do, thanks.

KeithReilly

d'Oracle wrote: »

Hello there.
If you will forgive the wee distraction to your thread, what jumps did you use for this smolov for OH press Lunacy?
Also did you do it 4 days a week or did you space it out a bit?

If I remember correctly without digging out an old log book. I took my 1RM as 75kg.

Week one was:
55 x 9 x 4, 57.5 x 7 x 5, 60 x 5 x 7, 62.5 x 3 x 10.

Week two I just increased everything by 2.5kg;
57.5 x 9 x 4, 60 x 7 x 5, 62.5 x 5 x 7, 65 x 3 x 10/

Week 3 I again increased everything by 2.5kg;
60 x 9 x 4, 62.5 x 7 x 5, 65 x 5 x 7, 67.5 x 3 x 10.

Lots of lat and upper back work were done too.
Flat benched with less volume.
Done no direct Triceps work.

It was generally done something like Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday.
High reps, 9 and 7, were hard and lower reps, 5 and 3 were easy.

Fourth week I hit a 80kg press for a PB.

While you might throw your eyes up at it, the reality is I'd nothing to lose, my press had gone nowhere for I don't know how long so the improvement I got was more than welcomed.

The increase in shoulder strength was also more than likely the variable that added to my bench as I've said before without concentrating on it.

d'Oracle

KeithReilly wrote: »

If I remember correctly without digging out an old log book. I took my 1RM as 75kg.

Week one was:
55 x 9 x 4, 57.5 x 7 x 5, 60 x 5 x 7, 62.5 x 3 x 10.

Week two I just increased everything by 2.5kg;
57.5 x 9 x 4, 60 x 7 x 5, 62.5 x 5 x 7, 65 x 3 x 10/

Week 3 I again increased everything by 2.5kg;
60 x 9 x 4, 62.5 x 7 x 5, 65 x 5 x 7, 67.5 x 3 x 10.

Lots of lat and upper back work were done too.
Flat benched with less volume.
Done no direct Triceps work.

It was generally done something like Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday.
High reps, 9 and 7, were hard and lower reps, 5 and 3 were easy.

Fourth week I hit a 80kg press for a PB.

While you might throw your eyes up at it, the reality is I'd nothing to lose, my press had gone nowhere for I don't know how long so the improvement I got was more than welcomed.

The increase in shoulder strength was also more than likely the variable that added to my bench as I've said before without concentrating on it.

Oh I'm not throwing my eyes up at all.
Sometimes mentalism is good. The Smolov squat cycle is more than a bit unhinged.

Did you do any lower body stuff during the cycle?

KeithReilly

I was suffering from a knee injury sustained outside lifting weights that only allowed me to deadlift and not at the level I would have liked.

I do also find that a strong squat, front and back have a good carryover to the press. not in the same way that they would a push press but rather the fact that they set up the foundation underneath you. If you've weak legs you won't have much of a press. The fact that I'm back squatting regularly recently should hopefully help improve my press.

Hanley

To press more (weight), press more (often).

That's generally the way to fix any slow moving lift once you program correctly. I don't see the big deal in using Smolov for a month. Might not be the most effective scheme, but in principle it should work, and did.

Now if you've done mid-intensity/high volume, the next logical step is to try high intensity/low volume (ie do the opposite) or work really high reps (10-20). you could do something crazy like GVT, or concentrate on TUT instead.

Personally, I think more than almost anything else, OH pressing has a limited capacity to increase via near max weights (of course I'm open to correction/evidence otherwise) but I'd guess most dudes are making gains going with either higher reps or more frequency.

I'd good success going 15-12-9-6-4 once per week and adding weight to each set as I go, then adding slightly more the next week. And then doing some other form of pressing on another day (machine/DB/push).

I haven't really said much of use there. Just thrown out some ideas. Whoops!