The overhead press activates all three heads of your deltoid muscles, making it an effective exercise for building deltoid strength and size, and that means stronger more defined shoulders! It also works the muscles in your triceps. Another benefit of overhead presses is they strengthen the rotator cuff muscles that help stabilize your shoulders and when strong help prevent injury. The big upper back muscle called the trapezius also gets a workout when you press overhead. While you’re doing the exercise, your core muscles activate to stabilize your body and hold it in alignment.
Now that you know how many muscles overhead presses work, make sure you’re doing them with good form to maximize the benefits. There are several ways people cheat when they do overhead presses and making these mistakes can interfere with strength gains and increase the risk of injury. Let’s look at some of the most common ways people cheat when they do overhead presses and how cheating reduces the benefits.
Arching Your Back and Spine
Do you arch your back when you press overhead? This is probably the most common way people cheat when they do overhead presses. When you do the exercise correctly, there will be a natural arch in your back even when you’re standing but, too often, people exaggerate that arch when they press a weight overhead. Overarching the back usually happens when they’re trying to work with too much resistance. . Lifting more weight at the expense of injury isn’t worth it. Plus, you’ll get more benefits if you focus on form over weight.
How can you correct this common problem? First, lighten up on the weight until you can lift overhead without arching. Also, work on building core strength, as a weak core and abdominal muscles force the back to compensate for the job your core should be doing. Also, consciously tighten your abs when you lift the weight overhead. Doing this will reduce the tendency to arch your back by increasing core stability. Not only does arching your back reduce the benefits of the movement, but it also compresses the discs in your lower spine. Over time, the discs and the ligaments that connect bone to bone accumulate repeated stress that can lead to disc herniation and lower back pain. You may not notice the effects right away, but if you make it a habit, you may pay for it later.
Using Your Legs
Overhead presses are an upper body exercise, yet many people cheat by bending their legs. When you bend your legs and press overhead, you reduce the load on the muscles in your upper body and also limit your potential gains. As with arching the back, some people also bend their knees when they press overhead because they’re working with too much weight. If you can’t do an overhead press without using your legs, switch to a lighter weight. Your legs should be straight throughout the movement when you’re doing the exercise right. When you use your legs to lift more weight, you’re cheating but also setting yourself up for bad habits that will work against you when you increase the weight.
Doing Seated Overhead Presses
Is it really cheating to do overhead presses sitting on a bench? When you sit on a bench to press overhead, you work fewer muscles than when you’re in a standing position. With a seated overhead press, you activate the muscles in your shoulders, triceps, and upper back, but your core gets less of a workout, especially if you’re sitting against a back support. That’s because your body is in a stable, supported position and your core doesn’t have to activate as much to maintain stability. When you press overhead from a seated position, it’s easier to overarch your back too, and that can lead to spinal compression and a heightened risk of back pain. You may get more upper body benefits if you stand when you press. A study showed that seated overhead presses activate the deltoids and triceps less than overhead presses from a standing position. So, you’ll get greater overall muscle activation if you do overhead presses from a standing position as opposed to sitting.
Using Only a Barbell to Do Overhead Presses
You can use a barbell or hold a dumbbell in each hand to do overhead presses. You might be limited by the availability of a barbell, but for the most benefits use both if you can. Your muscles grow when you challenge them in different ways and using dumbbells changes the mechanics of the exercise enough to trigger new muscle growth and avoid plateaus.
When you do overhead presses using a barbell, the amount of weight you can lift will be higher. In one study, men who did overhead presses using a barbell could lift 7% more than they could when doing the exercise with dumbbells. That’s good for your ego, but you won’t work as many muscles when you use a barbell as opposed to dumbbells. When you hold a dumbbell in each hand and press overhead, your core muscles have to contract to compensate for the greater instability the dumbbells create. Activating your core muscles while building upper body strength is a great way to multi-task and more benefits.
The Bottom Line
Now you know some of the most common ways people cheat when they do overhead presses. Some ways of cheating, like arching your back, can lead to injury while only doing seated overhead presses using barbells can limit your gains. Whichever type of overhead press you do, focus on form over resistance and avoid the tendency to cheat. Cheating in ways that help you work with more weight can come back to haunt you with an injury. Lift smart and keep your spine, ligaments, tendons, and muscles healthy.
References:
- Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research,” 27 (7): 1824–1831, 2013.
- Men’s Fitness. “Rookie Mistakes: The Overhead Press”
- Kroell, Jordan & Mike, Jonathan. (2017). Exploring the Standing Barbell Overhead Press. Strength and Conditioning Journal. 39. 1. 10.1519/SSC.0000000000000324.
- Baechle TR and Earle RW. Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning (3rded.). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. 2008.
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