Since I have been barbell training I have had a infatuation with the overhead press.. because it is primal, intimidating, and just because it looks totally badass..but for the first time in my entire life I pressed 135lbs over my head and damn it felt good! I have been aiming for this mark for 7 months now and I finally got it. Hell yea.
:A little back story to the Photo:
I have never really been into exercising much because there was always something else to dedicate my time to that I felt was more important. But last year when my Girlfriend told me she was Pregnant something shifted, I suddenly felt the need to get into better shape/stronger. So I started on a path to that goal..now prior to this I have never done any actual training/exercises other than your typically P.E. type stuff(push ups, running, jumping jacks, etc.) and MAYBE trained with a barbell a hand full of times when I would go to the gym with friends..but I never really gave a shit about learning. When I finally worked up the courage to go to a gym it was early February of 2017 and just days before my Son was born. I joined our local planet fitness because it was cheap and "judgement free" which was awesome to me because I don't like doing something new in front of others. I dicked around with different exercises and workouts I got off of the internet and seen some progress(I lost about 20 pounds) but as I slimmed up a bit I began to realize that being "healthy" was not enough..I needed to get stronger, much stronger. So I began to look into barbell training which was intimidating, especially with all the bullshit you read on the internet and hear people say about how it is "dangerous"...Pfft. Anyway, I left planet fitness and joined a small time gym which had access to everything I needed and have slowly been learning and getting stronger ever since. This was a bit long winded but I hit a milestone in this photo, one I have been striving for and up until 7 months ago when I began barbell training never even crossed my mind as a possibility and I wanted to share my success with anyone interested enough to listen.
Start slow, make mistakes(but learn from them), and never stop pressing forward.
Thank you,
Steve
Post a video of your overhead press.
I will do so Wednesday when I press again If I remember. This was actually a 1RM test that I attempted at the end of my workout, But I got it to lockout so I consider it a success.
Yeah I like overhead pressing too. Did you know that the overhead press is often considered the 4th exercise after the "big 3". It used to be the 4th exercise in powerlifting meets until flexible lifters started bending backwards to get more chest and less shoulder into it thus giving them an unfair advantage. I use dumbells for overhead lifting but I'm not that strong, I can get 10 reps using 30lb dumbells.
I did actually, and yea competitors arching and judges having a hard time determining if the press was good or not eventually caused it to be removed. hey man ten reps with 30's is awesome. I prefer the barbell just because it feels better to me but anything being pressed overhead in the gym has a good carry over to real life so keep rockin' on!