What Most Lifters Never Learn About Arms in the Press

Does your press feels stuck or inconsistent? Starting Strength Coach Phil Meggers covers 8 common errors lifters commit involving their arms as well as how to fix them.

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Struggling to Improve Your Press? These 10 Tips Actually Help.

Here are 10 quick tips to help you press more efficiently . . . today.

1. Narrow Grip
As a ballpark estimation, most guys will have their index finger right on the edge of the knurling (i.e., almost touching the smooth part of the bar), and most gals will have their index fingers on the smooth part of the bar with the rest of their fingers on the knurling.

Don’t take a wide grip - this isn’t the bench press. Simply reach out in front of you like you’re Frankenstein’s monster, and you are well on your way toward the correct grip width.

2. Bar Position in the Hands
When you take your grip, you’re setting up to push the barbell, so you shouldn’t have your wrists bent backward in full extension as if you’re trying to break your wrists.

In fact, if you simply reach out with one hand and lean on the bar in a casual, “just putting out the vibe” manner (Figure 1), you’ll probably do a good job of pushing on the bar with the base of your palm, which is what you want.

Figure 1: good bar position in the hand. good vibe too. i call it “knurled steel.”

Toward this end, pronate your hands slightly when you take your grip and be sure that you’re setting up with the bar in the base of the palm (i.e., not up by the pads at the base of your fingers). Squeeze the bar tightly, and all of this will help ensure that your wrists are relatively neutral and not bent backward in full extension (Figure 2).

figure 2: terrible bar position in the hand. hideous wrist extension. awkward vibe.

3. Dip Down
After you take your grip, but before you unrack the bar, get very close to the bar (chest touching the bar is a good approach), and then dip down by bending your knees. Dip down far enough so that you can rotate your elbows slightly in front of the bar without having to bend your wrists.

Treat your wrists like they are in a cast - do not let them change shape or bend backward at all as you rotate your elbows into position. Dipping down far enough is key to this process.

Once your elbows are in position, unrack the bar by standing up, i.e., you unrack the bar with your legs - not your arms.

4. Stay Close
This isn’t a marathon - stay close to the rack after you unrack the bar.

The process is: “stand the bar up, half step, half step.” In other words, unrack the bar with your legs, take a small step back with your right foot, then take a small step back with your left foot. At this point, you’re ready to press.

5. Wide Stance
A common error is a stance that is too narrow. To fix this, unrack the bar with your feet at roughly squat width (or slightly wider), and then maintain that width as you take your two half steps backward from the rack.

6. Elbows
Viewed from the front, you should have vertical forearms. Viewed from the side, your elbows should be slightly in front of the bar.

You achieve this position before you ever unrack the bar (back in tip #3), so make sure you maintain this position during the unracking process.

Never let your elbows drift backward out of position.

7. Eyes Forward
Pick a spot on the wall in front of you at about eye-height. Stare at that spot before you unrack the bar, during the unracking process, during and between each rep, and until the bar is back in the hooks.

Don’t close your eyes, and don’t let your gaze wander. Stare at your focal point.

8. Tight Knees
If you bend your knees, the lift becomes a push press, so your rep doesn’t count.

With that in mind, flex your quads hard before you reach forward with your hips. We don’t usually cue muscles, but we do cue them when we’re trying to prevent movement, and that’s exactly the case here. We want to prevent knee flexion.

Tight knees. Flex the quads. Keep the knees stiff.

9. Aim
Give yourself something to aim for when pressing.

Aim for your nose, or cue yourself to press up and slightly backward.

10. Throw the Bar
Think of the press as a throw.

When you reach forward with your hips, that’s analogous to winding up to throw a baseball - cocking your arm back and getting ready to stride forward.

Then, as your hips slam back into position - as you aggressively stand up - that’s the violent aspect of the throw.

The press is a throw that uses the hips to get the movement started.

As always, we hope this helps you get stronger and live better.

-Phil

PS: Whenever you want even more Testify in your life, here are some free resources:

• Book a free intro and strategy session with us HERE.

• Pick up a free copy of Testify’s Squat Guide: 12 Tips to Improve Your Squat Now HERE.

• Get our free weekly email - containing useful videos, articles, and training tips - HERE.

• Follow Testify on Instagram HERE.

• Subscribe to Testify’s YouTube channel HERE.

(Some links may be affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, Testify earns from qualifying purchases.)

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At Testify, we offer small group training, private coaching (in-person or remotely via Zoom), online coaching, and form checks. Interested in getting stronger, looking better, and having more energy?

Why Your Press is WEAK: Fix Your Unrack and Grip with this Simple Mnemonic Device

(A Blast from the Past article originally posted on 09/22/23)

A common problem in the press is a terrible unracking process, and we've covered this before in both videos and articles, but here’s a different take - a simple mnemonic device - that just might help you out.

The Problem
You know you want a neutral wrist when pressing. It shouldn’t be completely straight (although we might use the overcue “straight wrists” at times), but it certainly should not be bent backward in full extension, either.

The problem of full extension is the more common of the two errors and is the situation we’re addressing here. For a video demonstration and explanation of this problem as well as how to solve it, be sure to watch one of the included videos.

When It Happens
You’re setting up to take your grip for the press - your grip is relatively narrow, you’ve pronated your hands slightly, and although you know you’re supposed to maintain a rigid, neutral wrist position as you approach and unrack the barbell, it’s at this point that everything goes in the crapper. Somehow, as you approached the bar, you allowed your wrists to bend backward into full extension - which is a very weak and inefficient position from which to press - and now your coach wants to gouge his eyes out. Let’s prevent this.

The Culprit
You simply didn’t get low enough to allow yourself to maintain a neutral wrist. Remember that the legs are responsible for unracking the bar correctly - in a manner of speaking, you pick it up with your legs, not your arms. You need to dip down low enough so that you can keep your wrists neutral when approaching and unracking the bar. A decent pair of wrist wraps can help maintain neutral wrists, but they won’t cover up the root problem of not dipping down low enough with your legs.

A Simple Mnemonic Device
“Chest to bar, chin to bar.”

When taking your pronated grip, be sure to squeeze the bar tightly - crush the bar, if you will - then walk your chest up to the bar with your feet directly under the bar. This “chest to bar” aspect ensures you are close enough to the bar. Next, squat down - you’re actually just bending your knees - until the underside of your chin touches the bar.

By doing this, you’ve dipped down far enough that you’ve given yourself sufficient room to maintain a neutral wrist. If you don’t dip down far enough to create that space, your wrists will have to bend backward into extension to allow you to pick up the bar (because bending your wrists backward makes your forearms artificially shorter), and this is what you’re trying to avoid.

That’s all there is to it - simply walk your chest up to the bar, dip down until your chin touches the bar as you rotate your elbows slightly in front of the bar, and then stand the bar up while maintaining that nice, neutral wrist.

As a side note, some people won’t need to dip that far down; “chin to bar” will be overkill in these cases, but it will still work for pretty much everyone.

As always, we hope this helps you get stronger and live better!

-Phil

PS: Whenever you want even more Testify in your life, here are some free resources:

• Book a free intro and strategy session with us HERE.

• Pick up a free copy of Testify’s Squat Guide: 12 Tips to Improve Your Squat Now HERE.

• Get our free weekly email - containing useful videos, articles, and training tips - HERE.

• Follow Testify on Instagram HERE.

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(Some links may be affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, Testify earns from qualifying purchases.)

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At Testify, we offer small group training, private coaching (in-person or remotely via Zoom), online coaching, and form checks. Interested in getting stronger, looking better, and having more energy?

Want Your Press to Go Up? Make It Go Down First.

Struggling to drive your press up? Maybe you’re quite literally trying to take it in the wrong direction.

What on earth do I mean?

When you use the hips in the press, you perform a “reach-and-bounce” movement with your hips, i.e., you reach your hips forward, you get a stretch across your anterior musculature (because you’re flexing your abs and quads hard), and the hips bounce back as you stand up.

In turn, this helps your launch or “throw” the barbell upward . . . but only if you get the timing correct.

this fool has mistakenly reached his hips forward while simultaneously driving the bar upward.

Some lifters make the error of reaching with the hips and press the bar upward at the same time.

Don’t do this.

(to see this error in action, watch the short video below)

The correct sequence is “reach-then-press” or “reach-bounce-press.” Correctly executed, you will see the bar dip a couple of inches (as the hips reach forward) before it is launched upward - and therein lies a cue that can help you out if you struggle with the timing of the press.

“Make the bar dip.”

In other words, as you reach your hips forward, remind yourself that you’re going to make the bar go down slightly before it goes up. Think of it as compressing a spring (i.e., you) before it launches something upward (i.e., the bar).

Again, cue yourself to make the bar dip as you start the press. You can also try the rather catchy cue of “hip-and-dip,” i.e., when you reach with the hips, you should make the barbell dip at the same time.

This will help your timing, which will in turn help you get a bigger throw from the hip movement of your press, and that will help you drive your press upward - both physically and numerically.

As always, we hope this helps you get stronger and live better.

-Phil

PS: Whenever you want even more Testify in your life, here are some free resources:

• Book a free intro and strategy session with us HERE.

• Pick up a free copy of Testify’s Squat Guide: 12 Tips to Improve Your Squat Now HERE.

• Get our free weekly email - containing useful videos, articles, and training tips - HERE.

• Follow Testify on Instagram HERE.

• Subscribe to Testify’s YouTube channel HERE.

(Some links may be affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, Testify earns from qualifying purchases.)

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At Testify, we offer small group training, private coaching (in-person or remotely via Zoom), online coaching, and form checks. Interested in getting stronger, looking better, and having more energy?

How Many Lifters Are Actually Using the Wrong Grip on Bench Press and Press?

Are you using the right grip on the bench press and press? Many lifters aren’t—and it’s costing them strength and consistency. Starting Strength Coach Phil Meggers gives you the grip that sets you up for stronger, more effective lifts.

Whenever you want even more Testify in your life, here are some free resources:

• Book a free intro and strategy session with us HERE.

• Pick up a free copy of Testify’s Squat Guide: 12 Tips to Improve Your Squat Now HERE.

• Get our free weekly email - containing useful videos, articles, and training tips - HERE.

• Follow Testify on Instagram HERE.

• Subscribe to Testify’s YouTube channel HERE.

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At Testify, we offer small group training, private coaching (in-person or remotely via Zoom), online coaching, and form checks. Interested in getting stronger, looking better, and having more energy?

When Your Press Feels Off, Try This One Small Cue Instead

As anyone who presses knows, the press is supremely dependent on the bar path. If that barbell is just a bit out of the correct groove on a heavy press, your attempt is toast.

It’s possible to miss a press by pushing the weight too far back, of course, but it’s certainly far more common to struggle with a bar path that is forward of where you want it to be. With this in mind, if you find yourself leaving the bar out front on your presses, try this cue . . .

Aim for your face.

Don’t worry about hitting your face. Remember that, as you reach your hips forward, your shoulders and head will naturally counterbalance by moving backward slightly. As a result, you can cue yourself to aim for your face since your face won’t actually be there anymore by the time the barbell gets there.

“Aim for your nose” and “throw it back” are similar cues and ones that we use often, but if you find they’re not working for you, you’ll find that “aim for your face” drives home the concept a bit more aggressively, and that might just do the trick.

As always, we hope this helps you get stronger and live better.

-Phil

PS: Whenever you want even more Testify in your life, here are some free resources:

• Book a free intro and strategy session with us HERE.

• Pick up a free copy of Testify’s Squat Guide: 12 Tips to Improve Your Squat Now HERE.

• Get our free weekly email - containing useful videos, articles, and training tips - HERE.

• Follow Testify on Instagram HERE.

• Subscribe to Testify’s YouTube channel HERE.

(Some links may be affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, Testify earns from qualifying purchases.)

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At Testify, we offer small group training, private coaching (in-person or remotely via Zoom), online coaching, and form checks. Interested in getting stronger, looking better, and having more energy?