The Big and Strong Series - Overhead Training

The High-Set, Low-Rep Training Manifesto

Part 3: Overhead Press Training

     Part 1 - Legs and Back

     Part 2 - Chest and Lats

     It’s now time to turn our attention toward overhead training.  If you want to get as big, strong, and as jacked as humanly possible, you need to place overhead training in your lifting arsenal.  There are several reasons for its importance.  Before we get into those reasons, and then some different workout programs that are great for overhead work, I want to discuss something slightly tangential, but it also needs to be considered, especially if you’re going to get the results you want out of this series.

     Assuming you have read parts 1 and 2—if you haven’t, you may be at a slight loss as to exactly what is being chewed over here, so please do so—you will know, by now, that this training methodology of high-sets (sometimes a lot of sets) and low reps can really take a lot out of a lifter.  If you are considering using some of my ideas and suggestions, but have yet to do so, you need to understand one thing: if you take up this system of training, you can do very little else.  In fact, you shouldn’t do much else, outside of walking or some other form of “easy cardio.”  If you’re an athlete, unless you’re in the off-season and aren’t doing any of your chosen sport, you probably shouldn’t use these programs.  Same thing goes if you do a lot of other activities.  You may not be a competitive athlete, per se, but you run, you play sports as hobbies, or you’re heavily invested in a martial art, as I am a few times of the year.  This isn’t to say that you can’t get something out of these essays.  It’s just that, in all likelihood, you will need to do a much gentler training program.  This system of training is for the lifter who wants to be the biggest, the strongest, the most powerful version of himself, and he is dedicated to that, and that, only!  With that out of the way, back to our series…

     There was a time when one lift reigned supreme over all others.  A lifting age when everyone asked a well-built man, “How much can you press?” and the question did not refer to the bench press.  It was an iron age when the overhead press was the measure of the muscle man.  In the words of Bill Starr, “The overhead press was the most popular exercise in all of weight training because it was the lift that served as a gauge of upper body strength. Or more accurately, a person’s overall strength.”  You read all of that correctly.  Before our time, when (unfortunately) a lifter is “measured” by how large are his biceps and how big is his bench press, the overhead press was king.  And since that time, as Bill Starr pointed out before he left this world for that big Gold’s Gym in the sky, Starr said that he never saw anyone in the gyms he trained at press more than 75 pounds over their bodyweight overhead.  Heck, he said that he hardly ever saw a lifter press his bodyweight overhead.  Luckily, as I have witnessed in the decade since Starr left us, more lifters care about the overhead press than those in the decades before.  So, let’s turn our attention to how to increase the original king of all lifts.

     When lifters want to develop their overhead press with the barbell (the military press, as it’s also known), one of the first questions I’m asked is how should they do the lift?  For one, should they unrack it from the power rack and press from there or should they clean it and then press it?  I think you should do both and, in fact, you need to do both.  Spend some time doing both clean and presses—where, on each and every rep, you set the bar on the ground before starting the lift again—and presses from the rack.  You can also do some of your presses in the rack, by setting the pins where you naturally start the lift from the point that you clean it to your shoulders.  For another, should you do the press in a “strict” fashion or with a bit of help from a slight bend in your knees?  Again, you should do both.  The “strict” press is what a military press should be.  You should also do push presses where you get a slight start from squatting down just a little and ones where you drop down to a quarter squat before starting the press.  Doing all of the above will develop you into a well-rounded overhead presser.  It will also develop a lot of overall muscle on the whole of your frame.

      The old-school lifter and legendary writer Anthony Ditillo, who penned some of the iron game’s greatest essays in (primarily) the ‘70s got absolutely huge and massive without the use of anabolic drugs.  How did he do it?  First, he ate like an absolute behemoth should eat, scarfing down as much protein and calories as he could on a daily basis.  Second, he followed the kind of training that I have been writing about in this series.  He would do squats, front squats, and lunges 3 days a week for 10 sets of 3-5 reps on each exercise.  He then did heavy pulls—largely power cleans, power snatches, and high pulls—on another 3 days per week, also for 10 sets of 3-5 reps each.  Then, to top that volume off (some might call the volume “insane,” but not me), he did overhead pressing movements (along with a few bench presses during the week), using pretty much the same kind of volume, but did it 6 days per week.  So, there’s one of the benefits of a lot of overhead work.  You can train it with the highest amount of volume and you can do so frequently.

     The “Bulgarian method,” where you max out on a lift each and every day that you train—typically 5 to 6 days per week per lift—works well on overhead pressing movements.  If you were to follow it for overhead work, I would start by selecting just 1 lift to utilize it on.  Military presses would probably be my first selection.  Start off with nothing more than the empty Olympic bar and do 5-rep ramps.  Do progressively heavier sets of 5 until you reach a hard, but not-all out, set.  Then, switch over to triples and do the same thing.  When the triples get tough, switch over to singles and work up to a near max.  You might want to start with just 5 days per week.  Once you have adapted to it, switch over to 6 days.

     You could also select a 2nd lift and alternate back and forth each day between the two movements.  You might do military presses at one workout and one-arm dumbbell overhead presses at the 2nd.  Here’s an example program that would have you significantly more big, strong, and massive if you could stick with it for the next few months:

Monday - Wednesday - Friday:

• Squats - follow one of the workouts from Part 1.

• Military presses - Ramps of 5s, triples, and then singles.  Don’t do anything else for the workout.

Tuesday - Thursday - Saturday:

• Heavy pulls - follow one of the workouts from Part 1.

• One-arm dumbbell overhead presses - Ramps of 5s, triples, then singles (each arm)

     If you want to train some other lifts, then reduce your overhead work down to only 2 to 3x per week, but increase the number of lifts you do at each session.  I think the best 3 overhead movements, assuming you want to train 3 overhead lifts in one session, would be military presses, behind-the-neck presses, and one-arm dumbbell overhead presses.  Here’s an example program that you can start by doing twice weekly and then slowly proceed to doing it 3 days a week:

• Military presses: 8 sets of 2-3 reps.  Start with a weight that is approximately 90% of your 5-rep max.  Do 8 sets of 2 reps with that weight.  At each session, add a set or two of 3 reps and then do 2 reps on the remainder of your sets.  If you want to be precise about it, just do 7 sets of 2 reps and 1 set of 3 reps at the 2nd session, 6 sets of 2 reps and 2 sets of 3 reps at the 3rd, and so forth.  However you decide to do it, increase the weight once you do 3 reps on all 8 sets.

• Behind-the-neck presses: 6 sets of 3-5 reps.  Use the same format on these but increase the reps slightly and lower the sets slightly.  So, the 1st session, you might do 6 sets of 3 reps.  The 2nd session, you might do 1 set of 5 reps, 1 set of 4 reps, and 4 sets of 3 reps and so on.  Once you are doing 5 reps on all 6 sets, increase the weight.  Start with a weight lighter than what you probably think you should use, perhaps a weight where you could do 8 to 10 reps for 1 all-out set.

• One-arm dumbbell overhead presses: 6 sets of 3-5 reps (each arm).  Use the same methodology as the b-t-n presses.

     If you want a little more rep variation while using 3 different movements, you could do singles on the 1st movement, doubles and triples on the 2nd, and 5-rep sets on the 3rd.  You might do 8 to 10 singles using the “Hepburn method,” 6 to 8 doubles and triples (using the method above for military presses), and 4 to 6 sets of 5 reps (start with a weight that you would use for 1 hard set of 10 reps; lighter is better, especially when it’s your 3rd exercise for the same muscle group).

     The great Marvin Eder—who we have already discussed some in the preceding essays—used programs very similar to these in order to develop his overhead press.  He was not only one of the world’s greatest bodybuilders in his day, he may have been, pound-for-pound, the greatest weightlifter in the world in the early to mid ‘50s—oh, and also, pound-for-pound just possibly the strongest bodybuilder to ever walk the planet.  Here is a description of his overhead press training in an article called “Marvin Eder Trains for the Press,” from a 1953 issue of Strength and Health magazine:

      Like most lifters, Marvin begins with a warm-up. In this, he presses 205 pounds 5 times. After this, he jumps the weight to 255 for 3 reps. Then he presses 290 x 3, and tops off the workout using 300 pounds for 4 to 5 sets of 3 repetitions. Naturally these poundages are not to be regarded as permanent. Even as I am writing this article, they may be slightly inaccurate because as Marvin improves his pressing ability he increases the weight used in his workout. To date, Marvin's press has usually increased about 15 pounds every six months. As of February, 1953, his best press, at a bodyweight of 193, was 340 pounds.

     Of course, Marvin's workout doesn't consist solely of presses. To help one's pressing ability one must, he believes, do auxiliary exercises. Thus he follows his pressing routine with dips on the parallel bars, doing 8 sets of 10 with 220 pounds tied around his waist. 

     Next, to get the hip and thigh power so necessary to the weightlifter, Marvin does squats, 8 sets of 3 with 500 pounds. 

     Finally, Marvin does snatching, here favoring 10 sets of 2-3 reps.

     This, then, is his typical workout on days when he seeks to improve his press. I would like to underscore again the fact that the key to gaining power, in Marvin's estimation, lies in employing very heavy weights for a great number of sets with low repetitions.

     Marvin follows this workout devoted to the improvement of his press with another of a different type on the very next day. In this, he presses dumbbells together in sets of 5, doing 7 to 10 sets with 120's. He then does bench presses, 5 x 8 with 350 pounds. 

     Note that he does standing presses and supine presses on different days. He never does them in the same workout. Incidentally, Marvin has done 450 in the bench press.

     You must understand something about Eder’s training—and it wasn’t dissimilar to most other “powerbuilders” of his era—and that’s the fact that he did both of the above workouts 3 days a week, meaning that he was training his overhead press (and other pressing muscles) 6 days straight before taking a day off.  This means that M-W-F was overhead presses (military presses), dips, squats, and snatches, and T-TH-S was dumbbell overhead presses and bench presses.  The article goes on to say that on the T-TH-S sessions, he also did “bodybuilding work,” but it didn’t mention the kind of training that it involved.  Just so you know, on Sundays, it wasn’t uncommon for Eder to head to the beach and do endless sets of chins and dips and then other “odd lifts” and what we would term nowadays to be gymnastics.  This was considered a “fun” day, when bodybuilders would get together, hang out with beautiful girls, and just do whatever training they wished/wanted to do.

     Obviously, for the mortal man, that would be a tad bit much.  But you could do something similar.  I wouldn’t train 6 days in a row.  Instead, I would utilize a 2-on, 1-off split.  Day one could be overhead pressing work (pick one of the workout suggestions here or something similar), and then squat and pull training as discussed in Part 1.  Day two could then be bench press and lat training a la Part 2.  (We haven’t discussed arms yet—that will be Part 4—but you can probably surmise the kind of workouts it will be.  You can throw in some arm training on one of these days, too.)

     Ladder clusters (which we touched on in Part 2) work well with overhead pressing.  You can do rep ladders or weight ladders, where the reps stay the same but the weight changes throughout a cluster set.  Let’s turn now to some different training ideas using ladder clusters.

     For rep ladders, use the same weight for a cluster set but vary the reps within the cluster.  Some popular ones that I’ve written about lately are 2-3-5 and 2-3-5-10 cluster sets.  For 2-3-5 clusters, select a weight to start with that is approximately 90% of your 5-rep max.  You can do a pre-set number of 2-3-5 clusters or just do them until the sets of 5 become difficult.  What you choose, and how many you do, really depends on how frequently you wish to train your overhead movements.  If you train a lift 3 days per week, it’s probably good to limit your reps to around 30 total for the movement.  If you do three 2-3-5 clusters, that’s 30 reps.  If you train a lift around 2 times per week, you can push your total reps to between 50 to 100, the total number depending on how heavy you train.  The heavier the weight, the lower your total reps should be.  This allows you a little more “freedom” in the sense that you can do more sets or add an extra lift to the workout.  For 2 days per week, 2-3-5-10 clusters work well.  5 clusters totals 100 reps.  If you decide to do 2-3-5-10 clusters, select a weight that is 90% of your 10-rep max.  Although 5 clusters is the “standard” recommendation—usually as an alternative to the more “traditional” 10 sets of 10 reps workout—a lot of lifters find that 3 clusters is enough, totaling 60 reps.  (For more on this method of training, and the 2-3-5 cluster, see my article “Skill Training as Size Building.”)

     Recently, I have been using, and getting good results with, what Russian powerlifting coach Boris Sheiko called “jerky” clusters, where you take a “non-linear” approach to the clusters.  Instead of 2-3-5-10, for instance, you do something like 3-10-2-5.  This allows you to stay almost perpetually fresh throughout the session.  When using 90% of your 5-rep max, instead of 2-3-5, you can use multiple variations: 2-5-3, 3-5-2, 1-5-2-3, 4-2-5-3, or 5-1-3-2-4, for just a few examples.  Use any combination you want as long as you go from high to low then high to low.  You can also just pick clusters where you only use 2 different reps, for instance going back and forth between 5 and 2 reps.  Do as many as you want until the 5-rep sets become difficult, then call it a day.

     The legendary German strongman Hermann Goerner—one of the greatest strongmen of the early 20th century; he could clean and press almost 400 pounds and do a one-arm thick-bar snatch of 170 pounds—favored training with what he called “chains,” which were “weight ladders.”  For this technique, you keep the reps the same but “wave” the weight utilized.  Let’s look at how you might apply this to your military press.  Start by doing sets of 5 reps, using nothing but the empty Olympic bar.  Do progressively heavier sets of 5 reps, then do the same with triples.  Let’s say you do a set of 135, 155, and 170, all for 3 reps.  When you finish with the triple at 170, drop back down to 135.  Do another set with 155 and then a 3rd with 170.  Repeat this “chain” until you struggle to get 3 reps with 170.  The beauty of this technique lies in its ability to allow you to do a lot of volume, despite only struggling with a few sets at 170.  Maybe you only get 3 triples at 170, but that also means you will have gotten 6 additional triples, 3 with 135 and 3 with 155, for a total of 9 working sets.  At the next workout, repeat the chain ladders with the same weights.  Once you can get 5 or 6 triples with 170, increase your weights at the next session.

     What about a program that combines overhead pressing with the chest training that we discussed in part 2?  As I mentioned in our 2nd part, when it comes to bench pressing, I think most lifters should limit their training to 3 days a week at the most.  Even though 3 days per week can be done, I also wrote that I think most lifters are better off limiting it to 2.  However, since you can do overhead pressing with such frequency, let’s look at some programs you could use that combine the two.  Obviously, you don’t want to combine the max number of times you could overhead press per week with the max you could bench press.  However, a more balanced approach would work wonders, not just for your overall physique development but for building both your bench strength and your overhead power.  Both lifts help the other.  Before powerlifting was a much-loved international sport, weightlifters used the bench press as an auxiliary movement for the overhead press (as we saw in Eder’s sample program).  Conversely, overhead work will aid your bench press strength.

     If you want to do an upper-body specialization program for 6 to 8 weeks, consider training your presses 5 days per week, with 3 days devoted to overhead work, and the other 2 to the bench press.  I write “specialization program” because this might be too much work to do in addition to a lot of squat/pull training (especially if you added arm training to the mix).  You could try that if you want, but unless you have built up the work capacity to handle it—there are lifters out there who have done exactly that—I believe it’s simply too much weekly workload.  But for 6-8 weeks, a program such as the following might work well:

Monday: overhead press training (do a squat workout when you finish)

Tuesday: bench press training

Wednesday: overhead press training (finish with a pull session)

Thursday: off

Friday: bench press training

Saturday: overhead press training (finish with a light squat/pull session combined together)

     After 6 to 8 weeks, switch over to a squat/pull specialization, where you reverse the lifts that you are focusing upon.  Actually, going back and forth in that manner—6 to 8 weeks of upper body specialization and 6 to 8 weeks of legs/back specialization—would be an ideal way to train for, say, 6 months of the year.

     I believe we’ve probably covered enough material for now.  As always, if there are any questions or comments, leave them in the comments section below or shoot me an email if you want a more personalized response.  I’m a little behind right now in answering some of my emails, so if you have sent me one and I haven’t gotten back to you yet, please be patient.  I’ll get around to it shortly.  Also, before I write Part 4 (arm training), I have a couple of other subjects I want to write about, so it may be a week or so until I get around to our 4th part.  Until then, stay strong and stay at it.  If you want to get as big, strong, and massive as possible, don’t neglect training your overhead movements.  It’s one of the keys to making you a mass monster among men!