Unusual but Powerful way to Improve Your Squat

Could this be a secret new gadget built in a Silicon Valley by AI nerds trying to develop an autonomous Supermanor is it a newly discovered workout program developed by monks in a Tibetan monastery?

Nope!

It is an almost never practiced lift from pre-historic times(the 1970s). It is the long-forgotten push press!

How can putting a weight overhead improve your squat?

Overhead lifting builds balance, muscular coordination and a serious ability to control heavy weights in space.

It also works every muscle in your body on every rep.

 

Lift Not Overhead

Lifting overhead is all but forgotten except by the tribe of weightlifting enthusiasts known as Olympic Lifters. These folks need to work on a special lifting platform with special (very expensive) weight sets that can be dropped from great heights.

For these reasons, they tend not to be found in mainstream fitness gyms.

Lifting a heavy weight and having to control it in space.usually directly above your head can be a daunting adventure.

These days most gyms are instrumented so that overhead lifting is done sitting on your ass and usually on a machine that takes all the risk (and benefit) out of controlling a weight in space.

Occasionally some intrepid lifters go into the squat cage and do a few standing overhead presses.

IMHO this is better than nothing.but not something that give maximum return on your investment of energy and time.

 

Push Press Lore

The max benefit from doing the push press begins by lifting the weight off the floor to get it up to your shoulders for popping overhead.

IMHO too many people want to do overhead lifting by starting with the weight conveniently available at shoulder height.

This makes something easy that should be more of an athletic challenge.

Thus, I strongly recommend starting with the weight on the floor and bringing it to your shoulders with the old-style power clean.

This is the technique used by Olympic lifters before it was legal to use the hip bump to propel a weight upward. It used to be a standard athletic training exercise for people in all sports. Now it has gone the way of the Oldsmobile and Studebaker.

Power cleaning the bar off the floor is great because it activates all the muscles you will need to get the most out of popping the weight overhead.

 

The Lift

Bring a barbell to your shoulders using the power clean.

With the bar across your upper chest take a deep breath then bend your knees slightly and quickly snap them back to help drive the weight upward.

The weight should be locked out overhead, then lowered to your shoulders again. Repeat the knee kick to help put the weight overhead.

Begin using a weight that you can manage with minor difficulty for 2 sets of 3-5 reps.

Coda

Lifting heavy stuff is fun. The push press is one of those lifts that can be super fun. It will also help give you solid abs, a balanced look, and it can also help you when you shoot hoops.

Lift Big

Richard