A push press is a weight training exercise for the

anterior Standard anatomical terms of location are used to unambiguously describe the anatomy of animals, including humans. The terms, typically derived from Latin or Greek roots, describe something in its standard anatomical position. This position prov ...

head of the deltoid (shoulder).

Execution

The push press is similar to the

military press The overhead press is an upper-body weight training exercise in which the trainee presses a weight overhead while seated or standing. It is mainly used to develop the anterior deltoid muscles of the shoulder. The standing version was once a compon ...

, in that the bar is held just above chest height and is pushed upwards before being lowered back down again; however, the movement is started by a 'push' from the legs. This begins the momentum of the movement and helps with the lifting of the weight overhead. The bar is then slowly lowered back to the chest and the legs are slightly bent again ready to being the next repetition. Alternatively, if the weight is so heavy that lowering it would be potentially unsafe, then it can be dropped from the overhead position onto surrounding padded flooring. The push press can also be performed from behind the neck. These are sometimes not recommended though due to an increased risk of injury. One-handed push presses can also be performed. These can help to increase core strength as it requires extra effort to stabilise the uncentred weight. In addition, as with other forms of unilateral work, they can help to reduce muscle imbalances in the body. For example, in a bilateral, two-handed push press, there may be an excessively large muscle imbalance meaning that the right side is performing 55% of the work and the left side 45%. By working each side individually, with the same weight, then it can be ensured that each side is performing the same amount of work, which in turn can help to reduce an excessive strength imbalance. Push presses are also commonly performed with dumbbells and kettlebells.

Purpose

The push press is used to help develop shoulder strength. It can be used to push past a sticking point or develop power for the

Clean and Jerk The clean and jerk is a composite of two weightlifting movements, most often performed with a barbell: the clean and the jerk. During the ''clean'', the lifter moves the barbell from the floor to a racked position across the deltoids, without res ...

(though 'pressing' is illegal in competition). The ability to drive from the legs and through the torso to the arms is important for sports (this is also found in the

bench press The bench press, or chest press, is a weight training exercise in which the trainee presses a weight upwards while lying on a weight training bench. Although the bench press is a full-body exercise, the muscles primarily used are the pectorali ...

Advantages

The push press can improve all over body coordination (though not to the extent of the

weightlifting Weightlifting generally refers to activities in which people lift weights, often in the form of dumbbells or barbells. People lift various kinds of weights for a variety of different reasons. These may include various types of competition; promo ...

movements). It can also allow a trainee to use the

eccentric Eccentricity or eccentric may refer to: * Eccentricity (behavior), odd behavior on the part of a person, as opposed to being "normal" Mathematics, science and technology Mathematics * Off-center, in geometry * Eccentricity (graph theory) of a v ...

portion of the exercise with a weight that may be too heavy for the

concentric In geometry, two or more objects are said to be concentric, coaxal, or coaxial when they share the same center or axis. Circles, regular polygons and regular polyhedra, and spheres may be concentric to one another (sharing the same center point ...

phase, thereby increasing strength.

Drawbacks

As the momentum is initiated by the legs, the bottom portion of the range of motion may be under-developed compared to the middle and end portions. The entire range of motion is more reliably trained in a

shoulder press The overhead press is an upper-body weight training exercise in which the trainee presses a weight overhead while seated or standing. It is mainly used to develop the anterior deltoid muscles of the shoulder. The standing version was once a compone ...

. One method of training is to initiate lifting with a shoulder press, and then gradually turning it into a push press when the lifter no longer has the strength to lift it with his shoulders alone and does not want to train with a lighter weight.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Push Press Weight training exercises