Learning To Shoulder Press After 4 Years

Workout date: 1/19/17

It still amazes me how much a little knee bend can affect the amount of weight I can press above my head.  When we do a push press or a push jerk at the gym, I'm able to generate a lot of power from even the slightest of knee bends.  I know the knee bend is responsible for most of my power because I'm a disaster when I'm not allowed to use it.  The only time I'm not allowed to use a knee bend at the gym is when the shoulder press is programmed, as it was on Thursday.  The shoulder press tests pure upper body strength and your legs must remain straight when doing it.  For a lot of people, the difference between the press with no knee bend (shoulder press) and the press with the knee bend (push press) can be about 30 pounds or so.  For me, the difference in my 1RM for those two lifts is 65 pounds.  I don't think that is an indication of how strong my legs are.  More likely, it is an indictment of how weak my arms are.

The shoulder press was the featured element of the Thursday WOD.  We would be working towards a 3RM.  This was one of the benchmark workouts for January.  After that, we were supposed to do a 5x5 (5 sets of 5 reps) of the back squat, using 80-90% of the 5RM benchmark number we found earlier in the month.  Coach Aimee was leading a baker's dozen at the 5:30 class and she had us start off with a bunch of exercises to warm up our shoulders.  (I needed to attend "earlier" classes on Thursday and Friday this week.)  Once those were complete, she asked us to sniff around and find someone who smelled like us.  This being a strength day and all, there was only going to be one choice for me if he was in class and sure enough he was.  I looked over at Matt B, he looked over at me, and from there it was just a matter of choosing what rack we'd be sharing.

As we all got our racks set up, Aimee explained to everyone that we shouldn't be holding the barbell the same way for the shoulder press as we would for a push press, push jerk, or even a front squat.  During those movements, you want the barbell flush to your body so that you can use the momentum from your body to drive the barbell upwards.  In the shoulder press, you don't have any momentum to use, so keeping the barbell flush to your body only resulted in the athlete having to move their head out of the way for no good reason.  She instructed us to hold the barbell in front of our body, something I had never heard before in nearly 4 years of doing Crossfit.  (Kinda scary that I don't even know how to do the simple stuff at this point!)  I thought I might be the only one feeling this way, but Shawna also mentioned that she had never heard anyone tell her to shoulder press in this manner.  I tested it out with an empty barbell and it felt weird to me.  In a way, it was testing my arm strength even more because I had to hold the barbell out in front of me whereas before I could let it rest on my body.  On the flip side, I guess it was activating my muscles in advance of the lift which seemed like a benefit.

As Matt and I did some reps with the empty barbell and decided on what weights we would use for our sets, Aimee began talking about having to go for jury duty the next day.  It was the first time in her life that she had been summoned to serve on a jury and, like almost everyone I know, she was not looking forward to the experience.  She began asking us for the best ways to get out of jury duty.  We told her she could say things like "I inherently trust cops" or "I've been studying to take the LSAT".  The Liz Lemon approach was suggested, although we weren't sure she had enough hair to pull off Princess Leia.  There were also some other suggestions thrown out there that may have gotten her an extra visit in front of the judge.  I won't share what they were, but they were highly discouraged.

Neither Matt nor I wanted to do a lot of sets with the shoulder press, so we started off with 95 pounds and decided to make fairly aggressive leaps from there.  Matt was gonna end up with much more weight on the barbell, so I didn't want him to have to follow along with what I was doing, but he always tends to stay with me until I hit my max.  Then he brings out the big guns and goes much higher.  Matt had no problem with the set at 95 and neither did I.  We went up to 115 and Matt made it look easy.  I was still getting comfortable with having the barbell out in front of me, but I did work through 3 reps.

The next jump was to 135, which would tie my previous best.  I am typically not an advocate for tying your personal best and if I wasn't trying something new on this day, I likely would have slid on 5 more pounds and went for 140.  However, this new technique was very much a work in progress, so getting 135 would have felt like a new PR to me.  Matt pressed out 135 three times like he had just woken up and was doing an early morning stretch.  It was much more of a struggle for me.  As in, I couldn't press it out once.  I was able to press the barbell to about eyebrow-level, but couldn't get it any higher than that.  Because I had gotten some movement on this try, I decided I'd give it another shot before raising the white flag.

Matt had yet to be challenged and that didn't change when he moved up to 155.  He couldn't remember exactly what his 3RM shoulder press was, but he had guessed prior to the workout that it was 155.  After watching him do this set, it was clear that he had underestimated his strength.  I took on 135 again and duplicated my performance from the first attempt.  Got it moving, raised it almost to the top of my head, but couldn't press out that 1st rep completely.  I wasn't far off from getting that first rep, so I decided that I would only drop down to 130 for my next set.

Matt moved up to 165 for his PR attempt.  I thought I would finally see him struggle here, at least on the first rep.  The first rep is always the toughest because you don't have any momentum to use.  On the later reps, you get some momentum as you bring the barbell down from the previous rep.  Matt took the barbell from the rack, stepped back, and pressed out the first rep like it wasn't a big deal.  Two reps later, he had a new 3RM.  Matt had told me that his goal was to get a single rep at 185, but at this point, it looked like he might be able to handle three.

We had to slide off the 45 pound plates so that I could try 130.  Once we had the barbell set up with the smaller plates, I took on my final set.  I wasn't dropping weight again if I missed here.  If I got it, there was no point in going back to 135.  It was on to the back squat after this attempt.  I removed the barbell from the rack and began to press it overhead.  It was moving a little better than 135 had.  I had enough momentum going that I was able to get past the point where I had gotten stuck with 135.  I pressed it out completely and was one-third of the way home.  The second rep was easier than the first one, but the third rep ended up more like the first.  There was some struggle involved as I pressed it out, but I did get it overhead.  Final score: 130.

Enough of this minor league stuff.  It was time to get back to the real show.  Matt loaded 175 on to the barbell.  On his first rep, he finally showed signs of being human.  He was able to get it overhead, but the rep was slow and he was grimacing as he pressed it out.  That being said, I still had faith he'd get all three because he had completed the toughest rep.  He had the second rep halfway up before unexpectedly letting go of the barbell.  It was still a hell of an effort and I can't fathom of a day when I'll be able to shoulder press 175 for a single rep.

We moved on to the back squat sets.  Matt intended to use 225 pounds for his 5 sets while I was going with 255 for mine.  Aimee had mentioned doing some accessory work along with our shoulder press and back squat sets, so we both felt like we needed to pick up the pace a bit to leave time for that.  We needed some warmup sets, then we'd have to do 5 heavy sets which would require recovery time in between.  What I didn't realize was that Aimee had suggested doing this accessory work during our breaks in between back squat sets, so we had more time for the back squats than I realized.  (Note: My accessory work was going to be banded bar muscle-up practice or handstand push-up practice.  I couldn't do either of those in between back squat sets though, not with my lifting shoes on.)  We threw 135 pounds on our barbell and knocked out a quick set each.  Then we moved up to 185 and did another fast set.  Matt was ready for a natural progression to 225 from that last set at 185.  I was stuck with a tough decision.  Do I perform an extra warmup set at 225 and then go to 255?  Or do I make a 70 pound jump to 255?

Because I had misunderstood how much time we'd need for the accessory work (which was none since it was being done within the back squat sets), I made the very poor decision of leaping up from 185 pounds to 255 pounds.  I didn't want to waste any additional time with an extra set, plus I felt that 255 was a comfortable weight for me to use for a set of 5.  When I worked up to a set of 5 reps at 285 pounds in January, the penultimate set was at 255 and it went smoothly.  All I had to do was get comfortable during that first set at 255 today and the other four wouldn't be a problem.

Matt did his first set at 225 and then I got ready for my first set at 255.  As soon as I walked the barbell back from the rack, I could feel how heavy it was.  My body's instant reaction seemed to be "where the hell did this extra 70 pounds come from?"  I descended into my first rep and had to push really hard to come out of it.  The next four reps were rather slow as well.  It was a relief to return the barbell to the rack.  I didn't need four more sets to know I had chosen poorly in skipping a bridge set from 185 to 255.

Matt completed four more sets at 225.  I completed four more sets at 255.  None of my later sets were as difficult as the first one, which is exactly why you let your body get accustomed to how much weight you are about to use rather than making 70 pound jumps.  Neither of us did any accessory work, but Aimee didn't seem bothered by that.  When we were done, I felt some soreness in my lower back.  It wasn't a sharp pain, but it felt like something that might be much worse in the morning.  There was likely to be an epsom salt bath in my near future.

Friday preview: A challenging medium-length triplet involving thrusters, toes-to-bar, and double unders.  Have I been neglecting last year's obsession?