Press PR form check

[PuliMorgan]

Hi, I wish to get some critique on my Press. Stats: Male, 39 years, 5'5" tall, bodyweight 69 kilograms. I am working towards my first single plate press. Today I attempted a 56.25 kilogram PR. I failed in the first attempt. Then I took a 5 minute break and then I got it up on the second attempt. But I observed some more than the usual knee and hip movement when I checked the video. Can you please check if it qualifies as a legitimate Press?

Video shows both the failed and "successful" attempts:

[Cellist]

I think what you observed is correct, you got a little more knee on the second. I see it too. The old rules for the clean and press said that the legs and feet should be motionless, but in actual competition there was a lot of “cheating”.

[augeleven]

I would probably count it for me as a gym PR, but I definitely wouldn’t use that as my training max. Or practice singles with form like that.

[mgil]

Regardless of hip thrust or not, you need to get your elbows forward a little more and work on squeezing the lats as tight as you can so that you get more pec and anterior shoulder push out of the bottom.

I’d also recommend slow eccentric reps so that you can work on “elbows in” on the way down to get the motion a bit better engrained in your mind.

Edited to add:

Look at your elbows on the failed rep exactly where the bar stalls and freeze the video on the rep you make at the same spot and observe your elbow position.

[PuliMorgan]

Thank you all for the comments and suggestions. I will drop some weight off the bar and work on the form.

[mgil]

Thank you all for the comments and suggestions. I will drop some weight off the bar and work on the form.

I doubt much weight needs to come off the bar for your volume work.

Do you use over-warmups/heavy singles prior to your volume work? In other words, what does a normal press session look like?

Press is the most skill dependent lift of the four outlined by Rip and others. As such, it benefits more from targeted work at simply lifting a heavy single with decent frequency.

A good outline for a training session of press (using the weight here) would be:

Singles at:

47.5
50
52.5

Then...

5x5 at somewhere around 40 to 42.5kgs.

When you’re doing the singles, you have to get as absolutely right as possible under the bar. So much so that the lighter singles feel like they are going to become ballistic about mid rep.

[PuliMorgan]

I am following Barbell Medicine Bridge and today was Day 2 of final week which is a very low volume week with just a single and a triple for the Press. I did the press after Pin Squats. Today's Press session looked like this:

20 x 5
30 x 5
40 x 3
50 x 1
56.25 x Fail
56.25 x 1 (with knee bend)
51.25 x 3

Last week was 55 x 1, 50 x 3, 48.75 x 3 x 3 sets.
And the week before: 55 x Fail, 48.75 x 4, 47.5 x 4 x 3

[mgil]

Being honest, looks like volume is too low and you’ve been pushing too heavy singles too long. I’m guessing 50kg is a pretty clean press for you and shows good bar velocity. Practicing successful reps here and making the press look easy is the skill you want.

When you did 51.25x3, what was that third rep like?

[PuliMorgan]

Also, I come from SS background and I had spent considerable time to learn Press 2.0 as is evident from the following two videos which were shot 4 months ago. I never got elbows right even though SS coaches repeatedly pointed it out during form checks. Unlearning whatever half cooked technique I ended up with isn't easy.

1) Part 1: (step by step procedure from SS coaches)
2) Part 2: (42.5 kg x 5 recorded for form check 4 months ago)

[PuliMorgan]

Being honest, looks like volume is too low and you’ve been pushing too heavy singles too long. I’m guessing 50kg is a pretty clean press for you and shows good bar velocity. Practicing successful reps here and making the press look easy is the skill you want.

When you did 51.25x3, what was that third rep like?

I didn't record my triple, but there could have been a slight knee bend there too.

Sure, will focus on strict press technique and also on low intensity high volume. I have all the time in the world to reach that 60 kg Press target.

[mgil]

@PuliMorgan, the extra videos are helpful. You’ve been putting in good effort to dial in your press.

The “press 2.0” is something of a phenomenon. I think some people just get it and some don’t. I’d also note that there are prior SSCs that have abandoned the hip thrust as it can do more harm than good in terms of training.

I think your elbows may be helped with a slightly narrower grip. Also, you’ve got to really crank the lats and upper back down so that the shoulder joint rotates forward a bit. Shoving your chest forward may help as a cue also, but I don’t want to inundate you with cues. I think the grip moving in about a finger width on both sides will help tremendously.

And you’re absolutely right, you’ve got plenty of time to hit 60kg. And you’ll absolutely get there.

[PuliMorgan]

Bringing the grip in could be a problem because my index finger and thumb already grip the unknurled portion of the bar (take a closer look at the front view of bar press in the first learning video - at about 00:30 mark). This is because of my narrower frame, I guess. If I bring the hands closer, the grip would suffer further.

And no, I can't afford to buy another bar with more knurl in the centre because I have already overshot my original sanctioned home gym budget by an amount that my wife would (and should) never find out.

Edit: I will take care of the lats and elbows cues.

[mgil]

You can wrap the barbell in grip tape, possibly.

[PuliMorgan]

Thanks for the tip. I can get badminton racket grip tape. Let me try that out first.

[Hardartery]

I just watched all of your videos. I didn't see anything wrong with the first two, you actually bend more in the failed attempt than than the success you just don't use the bend to generate force in the fail. I don't know what SS is trying to teach with that "Press 2.0", but it's silly. I'm going to give my opinion here. Worry less. That's step one. DO NOT move your hands in, they are too narrow now. I am going to repeat that, DO NOT MOVE YOUR HANDS IN. Your fails are all at lockout. All of them. That is a very clear, beyond a doubt signal that the problem is not at the bottom. Your shoulders and pecs are already generating way more force than you triceps and traps can keep up with. You are trying to overcome a strength issue sby using velocity. Stop that. It's not a Jerk, it's a Press. Work your triceps. Do lockouts in the rack (Seated or standing), do BTN Press (They will not kill your shoulders, contrary to popular Bro Science critics). Put some weight on the bar, widen your grip slightly, knit pick less. And it doesn't hurt to use Push Press for variety sometimes.

[mgil]

I have to politely disagree, @Hardartery, with regards to the point of failure in the lift.

I took a screenshot of the failed attempt at the failure point. The elbows are roughly at 90 degrees, far from lockout. I won’t disagree that triceps help will work, but the point where the lift fails, particularly press, is because some part of the concentric phase prior to the failure point failed to provide sufficient velocity/momentum to carry past this point, which is a common point of failure.

Here’s the screenshot for reference:

[mbasic]

I am following Barbell Medicine Bridge and today was Day 2 of final week which is a very low volume week with just a single and a triple for the Press. I did the press after Pin Squats.

If the OHP is important to you, on days like this I would press before everything else.

Press will not typically derail (well, to a significant degree anyways) a squat or deadlift exercise that comes next in that day's workout.
...but the reverse is true, or more true.

Esp.on a day like this, when the squat movement is a secondary/variant ("pin squat")....just press first, that way you're fresh.

--------------------------

(all this ^ might not apply if one's press is all super-"dynamic", SS-weird, and back-bendy .... your's is fairly tame in this regard)

[PuliMorgan]

@Hardartery and @mgil : Sure, I will do something about my tris - they ARE weak.

@mbasic : I had to look up the meaning of the phrase "fairly tame". Yea, you are right. I was an SS fan and really (and unsuccessfully) tried my best to master Press 2.0. You can see that I even made the SS rack and the wooden bench (with so many improvements, of course).

I left that place primarily because I couldn't stand the politics. Later I learnt a lot and clearly understood why I was burning myself out towards end of my pre-COVID LP run. This forum helped a lot with opening my eyes.

Rippetoe and his books and his videos got me to the barbells and I am still grateful for that. Until then I was doing things that are being done by the guys who end up on OE Fitness and Gym Fails channels. If only he could keep the politics out and be a little bit more open to the divergent views on training...

[Hardartery]

I have to politely disagree, @Hardartery, with regards to the point of failure in the lift.

I took a screenshot of the failed attempt at the failure point. The elbows are roughly at 90 degrees, far from lockout. I won’t disagree that triceps help will work, but the point where the lift fails, particularly press, is because some part of the concentric phase prior to the failure point failed to provide sufficient velocity/momentum to carry past this point, which is a common point of failure.

I don't think that we are really in disagreement here. It's hard to know from the angle, but he does appear quite close to 90 degress elbow bend in the screenshot. He is well past 90 degrees shoulder though. His shoulder drive is gone at this point, and his triceps cannot take over effectively. His bar speed was decent, most people can grind one out with much less bar speed than that. I think the issues is that his grip is too narrow for a press for starters. If he had a wider grip (And I don't think it would take a lot) his elbows would not be at 90 degrees at this height and his triceps would be in a much better position bio-mechanically to push. I think that it is true that if he generated more speed/force he would accelerate past this point, but at a certain point that becomes unrealistic and you have to strengthen other portions of the lift. I certainly don't ever generate that much speed on a heavy press. I also think that lockouts can be a at the least a form of overload to trigger growth and more importantly (IMO) to become accustomed to the heavier weight. If it doesn't "Feel" as heavy, it makes a difference on the lift. Like heavy walkouts can help squat progression, this form of overload is a good for of mental trickery to help progress.

[mgil]

@Hardartery, I see your point.

The SS model has the hands just outside the shoulder. That’s because of the hip thrust motion being used to obtain a lot of velocity out of the rack position.

Going with a wider rack (closer to the grip width of a clean and press or jerk would create a more open elbow as you note. There would likely be a loss of velocity out of the bottom.

For long term press training, I’d probably recommend switching to a rack/grip that gets the barbell close to or on the chest. The SS model uses the floating rack which limits ROM (ironic, yes). Since OP was coming from the SS model, my original comments were framed that way.