What You Should NEVER Do When Pressing!
/
If you've trained the press long enough, you've had the experience wherein you push that barbell slightly forward out of that nice bar path you're aiming for, and suddenly, a press that should have been merely challenging instead becomes nearly impossible. Today, we cover three cues to fix this problem.
figure 1: Getting ready to aim for the nose
Solution 1: Target
For starters, give yourself a target at which to aim before starting each rep. Specifically, aim for your nose.
Don’t worry - your nose will be safely out of the way. There’s a natural counterbalancing movement that happens with the hips action of the press - the hips go forward, and your head moves back and out of the way.
Having a target can help significantly, so aim for your nose, or aim for where you nose was if you’re feeling pedantish (in which case “pedantish” bothers you to no end).
Solution 2: Overcue the Bar Path
If aiming for your nose doesn’t help you solve the problem, simply cue yourself to “press it backward” or “throw it back.” This is most certainly an overcue - an exaggeration of the correction needed - but overcues are often useful when trying to fix an error.
Solution 3: Elbows Forward
When you press the bar forward of the correct trajectory, you may accidentally be allowing the elbows to drift backward when you reach forward with your hips.
figure 2: the elbows have correctly dipped down but not backward.
Make no mistake, as you push the hips forward, the bar should dip slightly, which means the elbows should dip slightly as well. However, the elbows start the lift slightly in front of the bar and should stay slightly in front of the bar during this process (Figure 2). In other words, the elbows will dip down, but they should not drift backward as well.
If the elbows drift back (Figure 3), it greatly increases the chance that you will launch the bar forward. To fix this error, cue yourself to “keep the elbows forward” while you reach with your hips. The shorter version of this cue is simply “elbows forward.”
figure 3: the elbows have incorrectly drifted backward.
As always, we hope this helps you get stronger and live better.
(Some links may be affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, Testify earns from qualifying purchases.)