The King is headed for extinction: Once upon a time the clean and press was included in every true Iron Man’s shoulder routine. Once upon a time Olympic weightlifting was quite popular and the overhead press was one of the three Olympic lifts. Once upon a time powerlifters were convinced that acquiring a huge press-behind-the-neck was a surefire way to acquire a huge bench press.
Once upon a time elite bodybuilders like John Grimek, Marvin Eder, Sergio Oliva, Lou Ferrigno, Bertil Fox and Franco Columbo always made the free weight overhead press the cornerstone of their deltoid routines. Once upon a time real men regularly rotated amongst a huge menu of free weight overhead press variations. Once upon a time there were no exercise machines: in hindsight that was a blessing in disguise as trainees were forced to use crude tools, barbells and dumbbells. When it comes to provoking muscle growth, crude and difficult (barbells/dumbbells) trump smooth and efficient (exercise machines) every single time. There are so many free weight press variations that saying them out loud puts one in mind of Bubba in Forrest Gump describing the various types and kinds of shrimp dishes… “You got yer shrimp Creole and you got yer shrimp Jambalaya. You got yer BBQ shrimp and you got yer shrimp scampi….” Once upon a time iron pumping men could recite, Bubba-like, “You got yer standing dumbbell press and you got yer seated press-behind-the-neck, you got yer variations of the Olympic-style layback press and you got yer barbell push press. You got yer 3-position rack presses and you got yer seated dumbbell press….” The menu of free weight press variations was (and is) virtually limitless for the imaginative Iron Man. Nowadays both the free weight press and the imaginative iron man seem headed for extinction.
Rise of the Machines: When you press a weight overhead while seated on an exercise machine there is no need to control the side-to-side motion, i.e., the sway of the payload. The machine keeps the payload safely locked in a frozen groove. On the other hand, the free weight overhead presser must not only push upward and lower using great control; the free weight presser must also prevent the barbell or dumbbells from straying outside the proscribed motor pathway. Exerting side-to-side control causes muscle stabilizers to fire and to maximize muscle fiber recruitment, real men of yore used all kinds of different rep ranges and set combinations. They pressed twice or thrice weekly in sessions that incorporated low reps, high reps and all rep ranges in-between. Sometimes they’d go for maximum poundage using low reps, other times they might seek to set high rep records. Sometimes they’d do both within the same workout. Infinite set and rep variations can be combined with infinite technical variations to create an infinite and inexhaustible variety of free weight overhead pressing possibilities. The ancient Iron Men of yore had a reverence for pressing barbells and dumbbells for one simple reason: RESULTS! True Iron Men knew that the overhead press (done properly) is without question the most effective deltoid-building, result-producing, time-efficient and flat-out effective method for building the muscles of the shoulder girdle. Radically increased muscle size begets radically increased muscle strength. Nowadays, in the information age, the most fabulous of all shoulder exercises, the free weight overhead press with a barbell is headed towards exercise extinction. Will the free weight press go the way of the Zercher Squat, the sissy squat or the Zottman curl? That would be a true iron tragedy.
Bad stigma: Why is the venerable and effective overhead press headed to the exercise scrap heap? The reason is simple: the modern trainee has bought into the idea that the overhead press done on an exercise machine is the muscle-building, strength-infusing equal, the result-producing equivalent, of free weight pressing. That is factually inaccurate; when it comes to results, free weights trump machines that mimic every single time! Overhead pressing, the kind done standing on your two feet, has taken on a decidedly “lame-O” status amongst the younger generations. Doing a clean and press in a machine-centric spa gym is looked upon with puzzlement or disdain. The standing clean-and-press is decidedly un-cool and decidedly out of favor. The ultimate loser is those weak-shouldered trainees that sneer at free weight pressing. Most young trainees have never done any direct deltoid exercises that did not involve sitting on an exercise press or lateral machine or using cables or both. In the good old days of yore it was a point of pride and honor amongst real Iron Men to be able, at the very least, to clean and overhead press bodyweight! Advanced trainees sought to press body weight ten times and the top men could clean and press between 300 and 500 pounds. When a man is able to press bodyweight overhead he is well on his way to constructing massive shoulders. The shoulders are what push poundage overhead. The more a man can push overhead the greater the muscular results. Pure and simple: build up a big overhead press and you will simultaneously construct huge, powerful shoulders. Nothing builds dense, thick, power-packed deltoids better or faster than standing erect on your two feet – and after a precision clean – repping out with a barbell or pair of dumbbells using pristine technique. Every rep should be held in the completely locked position for a full second before lowering with precision for the subsequent rep.
Break the exercise machine and cable addiction! For a wide variety of lame reasons few trainees perform overhead lifting. Nowadays the free weight press is practiced by an ever-dwindling band of the maniacal Iron Men. If the name of the game is increasing deltoid size and strength, it is not enough to perform a few half ass sets of machine presses, a few easy sets of cable or dumbbell lateral raises, and call it a day. How can you expect significant increases in muscle size or significant increases in strength by performing a few moderate sets of machine presses and few moderate sets of lateral raises once a week? Moderation cannot and will not build the monstrous cannonball delts you seek. Machine presses and cable laterals cannot infuse shoulders with the super strength you seek. No way. How do you construct the mythical cannonball deltoids? Build up your overhead press poundage. It’s that freaking simple: if you currently can press a pair of 35 pound dumbbells overhead for 10 reps in the standing press, I’ll tell you what – build the dumbbell press up to a pair of 70’s x 10 reps and you will see a dramatic increase in deltoid size. You likely will need to revamp your entire approach towards deltoid training and institute a shoulder specialization routine. Specialization is the modern ticket for blasting out of whatever shoulder rut you currently are mired in.
Press while standing up on your own two feet: Nowadays resistance trainers perform all their pressing sitting down using super-smooth press machines. A properly performed clean followed by a perfect layback (or military) press for reps is a technically complex undertaking that activates and stimulates an incredible number of muscles. Using machines eliminates the need to control side-to-side movement, the 3rd dimension of tension. You don’t even have to tense your lower body using a seated machine press. Machines impede the activation of muscle stabilizers, resulting in a significantly lower number of total muscle fibers being recruited. In the standing press the back is not supported and that is a good thing. In a standing press the muscles of the back are forced to act as tension backstops while the trainee pushes the weight overhead. The muscles antagonistic to the push muscles are forced to contract. The tensed back (and tensed hip and leg muscles) serve as the muscular launch pad for the push muscles of the shoulders, upper pecs and triceps. Fabulous stuff when viewed from a muscle-building perspective. Back in the day, men would overhead press using a barbell or dumbbells as much as three times a week. That’s no typo. Likely there is no area in your Politically Correct gym set aside for barbell lifting: you are instead surrounded by an armada of exercise machines. The average trainee is a hopeless machine addict. Typically the addicted train shoulders once a week for perhaps fifteen minutes – is it any wonder why they never make any shoulder progress? Here is a manly alternative: this is a twice weekly shoulder specialization routine designed to bring up lagging delts. Check it out below.
The Devil is in the Details: So what is going on here? The idea behind any “lagging body-part specialization” routine is simple: everything else takes a back seat to bringing up the lagging muscle or muscle group. If you have to rearrange or cut back on other training in order to accommodate the specialization routine – so be it! If you need to rearrange your lifting schedule – then you do it! You need to stay with this template for a minimum of four weeks and six or eight weeks would be better. Establish poundage benchmarks for each exercise right at the beginning. Seek to increase the benchmark poundage each succeeding week. By way of hypothetical example, if on Day I of Week I, after taking a warm-up set or two, you were able to clean and press 100×10, rest a bit then push 110×8 and finally press 125×5, in the following week you would shoot for 105×10, 115×8 and 130×6. This is a lot of shoulder work, 12 work sets per session. The exercise variety is designed to stimulate the push muscles from every conceivable angle. This is an Old School throwback retro routine that might have been used by a powerhouse like the incredible Mel Hennessy, a guy who could bench press 580 pounds weighing 215 without a bench shirt. Mel stood 5’5″ and could clean and press two 150 pound dumbbells for sets of 10. In the mid 1950’s another powerhouse named Marvin Eder was at his peak. He weighed 195 pounds and his shoulder strength was so incredible he could hold his arms straight out in front of him and hold that position while a 170 pound man did 10 rep dip sets using Eder’s wrists as handholds. Marvin had a 350 pound clean and press! Stick with our shoulder specialization routine for a few months and add a significant amount of beef to your entire shoulder girdle. Make the overhead press the preeminent shoulder exercise of every shoulder workout. Let’s bring the King back from the edge of extinction!
I strongly recommend that you Smart Bomb with a serving or two of 50/50 PlusTM after each shoulder specialization session. There is no sense beating the hell out of the muscles of the shoulder girdle and then starving those same muscles, thereby throwing your body into a catabolic tailspin: when you drink a post-workout 50/50 PlusTM shake containing roughly equal amounts of high BV protein and quality carbs, workout results are actually improved.
Twice Weekly Shoulder Specialization Template
| Day I
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| Barbell Clean & Press
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1-3 warm-up sets then work sets of 10, 8 and 5 reps
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| Seated Press Behind Neck
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1-3 warm-up sets then work sets of 10, 8 and 5 reps
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| Seated Dumbbell Press
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1-3 warm-up sets then work sets of 10, 8 and 5 reps
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| Standing Push Press
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1-3 warm-up sets then work sets of 10, 8 and 5 reps
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| Day II – two days later
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| Dumbbell Clean & Press
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1-3 warm-up sets then work sets of 10, 8 and 5 reps
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| Standing Press Behind Neck
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1-3 warm-up sets then work sets of 10, 8 and 5 reps
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| Seated Barbell Press
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1-3 warm-up sets then work sets of 10, 8 and 5 reps
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| Jerk off the Racks
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1-3 warm-up sets then work sets of 10, 8 and 5 reps
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