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