20-lb Jump on Press...Without Pressing

[Gary Gibson]

This was weird. Had to wait a looooooooong time for a squat rack today so I decided to mess around with the overhead lifts. I've always had trouble with 135 lbs on the press. Sometimes I get it and sometimes I don't, but I never get beyond it. Tonight I tried 135 and it went really easy. Got 145, then 155 and failed to move 165. But I got a 20-lb personal best without having trained the press at all for months. My bench hasn't shown much improvement either, but I did gain over 20 lbs of muscle and fat since the end of December. Very interesting.

I tend to focus on the squat and bench and let improvements there drive my deadlift and press. I get about 80% nearly immediate carryover from my squat improvements to my deadlift. About 50% from bench to press, but this time around my bench really hasn't moved much if at all.

[Tim Lofton]

That's great stuff re: your press Gary. Nothing like collateral strength gains. I hope you find your way through to increasing your bench.
One question I noted from your log: you have deadlifts logged sometimes with hook grip; why is this? Do you mix up the grip to further develop grip strength or just for variety? Thanks,

tim

[Paul Sousa]

Aren't you also working on keeping back angle a bit more? The added focus on that I'm sure has carried over to keeping a tighter torso while pressing.

The sad thing is my press always kept me happy when seeing how much more you could squat than me (at 60lb. less in bodyweight than me). Soon you'll be taking that silver lining away from me. :(

[TTT]

the other times where you've failed to lift 135, was it when you were fresh or was it after your usual squats etc?

[Gary Gibson]

I've been stuck at 135 for years and have tried it fresh many times.

[RobertFontaine]

I'm jealous, my overhead pressing is a long slow grind.

That's probably an article worth writing. The overhead press has pretty much disappeared from the gym and it's such a good lift.

Improving it is surprisingly difficult. I have no idea why.

[ZKP]

I can 100% promise you this is because of your gain in body weight. Thats awesome....

[Raskolnikov]

I definitely think it's a body weight thing, too. I've gained about 10lbs in the last few weeks and my press, in terms of percent increase, has gone up the most. I think the press is just very senstive to bodyweight for some reason.... Congrats!

[Milk]

I found micro loading is the only way to increase my press strength. I increase my weight by 2.5 pounds each time and not 5. If your arent doing this thats probably why press is stalling.

[Gary Gibson]

I found micro loading is the only way to increase my press strength. I increase my weight by 2.5 pounds each time and not 5. If your arent doing this thats probably why press is stalling.

I think I just needed to weigh more.

Notice: No microloading, no pressing at all...but 20-lb increase in bodyweight and ta da! a 20-lb increase in the press.

[Koalala]

I don't understand why the press is so based on bw.
I think you just got stronger gary.

So 155 is your 1rm press?

[PVC]

I don't understand why the press is so based on bw.

Probably because so few muscles are used to actually move the weight. That's why people who don't drink the milk usually stall early on the presses but keep progressing on the squat and deadlift.

Ooooh and Gary, your strength to bodyweight ratio just went up from 0.818 (135/165) to 0.838 (155/185)! Nice.