The Chase for a Four Wheel Press

[Paul Sousa]

Coming off of the "Training Milestone" thread I thought it could be cool to start a thread based on chasing a milestone. The press is the lift I seem to be best at and enjoy the most. I know one other person in that thread said they wanted to hit 225 on the press as a milestone and didn't know if any others had the same goal. Anyone out there chasing this want to post their progress on their way to 225?

My current best is 135lbs. for 10 reps this past Monday. Based on Wendler's 1RM calculator that would give me (possibly) a 1RM of 180lbs. I'm planning on testing my true 1RM numbers after a couple more cycles, but I have an estimated 45lbs. to go to reach my goal. Should be a long, fun road ahead!

And for anyone who already can press 225, if you want to post any advice on how you developed your press it would be great.

[Dastardly]

Lol, somebody else is pressing what i am deadlifting.

Story of my life.

[KONG]

And for anyone who already can press 225, if you want to post any advice on how you developed your press it would be great.

The number one thing that helped my press was that I had a big bench already (upper 300's). I just started pressing in the end of last year consistently with the novice progression. I started really slow just doing 2.5 lbs per session and tapered down to 1.25 lbs per session....just recently reset, and now doing 1.25 lbs per session and occasionally repping out the last set to failure.
I also think having a decent squat (400's) and deadlift (500's) is also key because in the end it comes down to the ability to stay stable under the bar to lock it out.
Finally, you have to look at the size or your levers involved in the lift. If they aren't thick, then its time to start eating.
Hope that helps...and keep "pressing" on.

[Paul Sousa]

Thanks dwayne! Out of curiosity, where was your bench you you finally pressed 225?

[KONG]

My program ( I wasn't doing "the" program) before November 2009 only included Squats, Bench, and Deadlifts/variations. So I had worked my 1RM bench up to 385. Then a few weeks later after hitting that max, I stopped benching due to a shoulder strain acquired during benching, and began to do "the" program but with presses only. I started with 155X5X3 and just went up from there slowly and had my first stall at 202.5X4,X4,X2...due to an elbow injury caused by squats. Then I reset the press and switched over to the safety squat bar for squats and my press started moving again. I could do 225/1 around the time I hit 200X5X3. I'm still on my reset right now and recently did 185X5,X5,X8 stopped just short of failure.

With the press, if you can take the smaller increments it will take you a lot further. So if you are thinking 45 more lbs and don't want to get stuck. If you have 1 lb increments it will only take you 45 workouts, if you don't get stuck. That will give you plenty of time to adapt to the increasing weight overhead.

I don't know if you are planning to a linear progression for this but it was the quickest way for me to get to 225 overhead.

[Paul Sousa]

Awesome, thanks for the input. I was thining my bench would need to be in the upper 300's to have a 225 press. I probably have about 100 lbs. to go on the bench to get there, but I figure it's not a 1:1 ratio as you continue to train.

[August West]

Anyone out there chasing this want to post their progress on their way to 225?


Yeah I'm motivated for this, and dwayne's experience gave some helpful perspective. I did 147.5 lbs for 3 x 5 today, so plenty of hard work is still ahead. Gonna stick with the 2.5 lb jumps as long as I can and just see what happens. I find that picture of Bill Starr pressing 350 in Starting Strength is a great motivator, gets me fired up every time.

[IWillLiveFreeOrDie]

Great thread! 225 is my goal too. I'm currently doing the Starr rehab for some shoulder pain I started experiencing a couple weeks ago. My last good workout was 145x5x3. I was making 5 pound jumps up until then. I will move to 2.5 and then to 1.25.

My issue is my basement isn't tall enough to press with 45s so I have to load 25s on instead. :D

[msingh]

I'm in this race. Only benching 10-15 kg more than my press so i've got a lot of benching to do too.

[PVC]

When I saw the title of this thread I nearly had a heart attack. Just so you know, saying "4 wheels" means 4 plates PER SIDE. As in, I thought you were going to be pressing 405 lbs.

[Paul Sousa]

When I saw the title of this thread I nearly had a heart attack. Just so you know, saying "4 wheels" means 4 plates PER SIDE. As in, I thought you were going to be pressing 405 lbs.

Yeah, I thought of that after I wrote it, but it's tough coming up with clever thread names. I figured it's technically four plates, so although misleading it isn't really wrong. :)

[Weakling]

I read this on another forum where a poster would push press a weight that would be 110% for them on the press. They would then take a good +6 seconds on the eccentric phase.

I plan on including it on my Friday workouts after my 3x5 as well as for my pullups.

[Platus]

I am chasing the BW press at the moment. My max bench is just over 200, but I put up 160x3 on my last pressing session; so, I'd say that my press is relatively high compared to my other lifts. I think that doing heavy, weighted ab work has been very helpful; thus far I have found that if I can get my torso under the bar the battle is won.

[Paul Sousa]

Pressed 140x8 last night. Not too happy since it was supposed to be 145. Need to pay better attention to what I'm loading on the bar. Bench on Friday and will be doing max reps at 230. I'm really hoping a 225 press will happen before the end of the year.