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The Military Press is an exercise in which to test your torso strength, it is considered a compound exercise in which you will test the strength of your shoulders, but the benefits of the military press also include the core strengthening, improvement in mobility and transfer to other lifts and to your daily life. This is why to gain strength almost all athletes should incorporate some type of Military Press into their training routine, as this is one of the best shoulder exercises.

Implicated musculature

The Military Press, also known as the Shoulder Press or Olympic Press, primarily engages our shoulders (middle and outer deltoids), but also engages our Triceps, Pectorals, Trapezius, Scapular Stabilizers, and Core. It is done by extending the arms vertically from the starting position at shoulder height, placing the bar on the pectoral clavicular bundle.

Barbell or Dumbbells?

Both alternatives will offer us the benefits of the Military Press, and we do not consider that it is necessary to choose between one version and the other. The military press with dumbbells is an exercise for unilateral work, correcting asymmetries and may be more comfortable for some people, perhaps if you train looking for aesthetics you would give this version more priority. However, the Barbell Military Press allows strength athletes to move more kilograms which will translate into greater strength gains.

Benefits of the Military Press

– Strength and hypertrophy of the shoulders: whether you train for strength or for aesthetics, the military press is the foundation for building strong and hypertrophied shoulders and should be the foundation of your shoulder training or vertical push. Any variant will have positive effects on the recruitment of the above mentioned musculature as mentioned in this study.

– Overhead exercise performance: When it comes to executing other more technical exercises such as the Jerk or handstand variants (Pine Push-ups, Handstand Walk…), strong shoulders as a result of the benefits of the Military Press are the basis for doing them safely. more complex exercises.

– Shoulder health: the “resilience” of our shoulders plays a significant role in avoiding injuries. The Military Press will help you build stronger shoulders and resilient joints.

– Transfer to our daily life: Regardless of whether you are a Powerlifter or simply like to be in shape, all of us will benefit in our daily lives from having a good torso musculature thanks to the Military Press, either when carrying groceries or if we develop postural problems for long days seated work

– An iron “core”: it is known that when we raise the dumbbells or the bar doing Military Press we require our stabilizing muscles of the abdomen, in particular our rectus abdominis, external oblique and spinal erector. This is especially true of the standing Military Press compared to the seated version.

– Improvement of the Bench Press: among the benefits of the Military Press is its transfer to the Bench Press. It can be said that having a strong Military Press implies a strong Bench Press, since both lifts recruit similar muscles. In fact, there is one study that suggests that the dumbbell Military Press can be predicted reasonably well from the bench press 6RM measurement.

Cons of the Military Press

– Injurious potential: the more mobile a joint is, the more possibilities of injuring it we have. That is why the shoulder is a joint that is somewhat easy to injure. However, as in almost any exercise, with correct technique, the Military Press is not going to be particularly harmful. The biggest problem can come from not controlling the weight and the joint giving out, so control the weights and you won’t have too much of a problem.

In conclusion, due to the benefits of the Military Press, we recommend including it in your routine, but be careful with the weights you move because failing in the Military Press is more dangerous than in other exercises.

Why is Military Press not part of any competitive discipline?

In this article we have talked about the benefits of Military Press, however it may be curious that Military Press is not done in any discipline. Behind this situation there is a rather interesting story that is worth telling.

Although today when we are asked about upper body strength we almost always think of the Bench Press, for most of the 20th century the answer would have been the Military Press. That is why the 1928 Amsterdam Olympic Games included the Clean and Press together with the Snatch and the Clean and Jerk within the so-called “Olympic Lifting”.

While the Snatch and the Clean and Jerk were exercises called “fast”, considered as exercises that tested the athlete’s speed and agility, the Clean and Press was seen as the true measure of the athlete’s strength, since the push was performed in a controlled way.

However, problems were not long in coming. While the idea was for weightlifters to do this strict exercise, i.e. with their backs straight, heels together, and their heads facing forward, this proved highly impractical, as it allowed various ways of “cheating” the movement to achieve participation. of larger muscle groups such as the legs and hips.

This meant that decades later, already in the middle of the Cold War, the desire for victory and competitiveness between political blocs led Soviet athletes to develop a series of techniques in which they arched their backs in an exaggerated way to commit as much as possible to the athlete. pectoral and manage to move a greater amount of kiloage. Although it is said that it was the Soviet athletes who started this trend, it would be unfair to ignore that the athletes of the capitalist bloc (American, French, German…) imitated this technique as soon as they learned it, degenerating the Military Press into a pseudo Press. of Chest.

This lousy technique led to breaking records with absolute ease abusing it and going from a Press of 122 kilos in the 1928 Olympics to bordering on 200 in just a few decades. It was clear that the strict form of the Military Press was more laughable than anything else.

The Olympic Committee decided to give in to this trend and at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics allowed a slight bend in the back if it was not excessive. The vagueness of the rule did not fix anything and athletes of all nationalities did the Military Press with the help of swaying and with their backs arched as much as possible.

As a curiosity, this was the last winner of Clean and Press in the heavy category, nothing more and nothing less than the mythical Vasily Alekseyev moving 500 pounds in the Clean and Press in 1972, as the Olympic Committee decided to eliminate the Clean and Press from the Olympic lifts starting in 1976.

His departure from Olympic lifting caused his popularity to drop precipitously, even among bodybuilders, with dumbbells and even the injurious Overhead Press widely used by Steve Reeves becoming more popular. Arnold however built his shoulders on the Dumbbell Press. On the other hand, at the end of the 60s, Powerlifting displaced the Military Press as the torso exercise par excellence, replacing it with the Bench Press. Many people called the Military Press “the forgotten lift” until the 2010s.

Fortunately, from that decade, programs like Starting Strength, in which the athletes work a series of basic exercises within which is the Military Press and the explosion of the Crossfit, where the Military Press is also widely used, have helped revive old laurels of our favorite Vertical Press. Of course it’s not nearly as popular as it was in the 1920s or 1930s, but we can safely say that it hasn’t been forgotten.

Of course it’s not nearly as popular as it was in the 1920s or 1930s, but we can safely say that it hasn’t been forgotten.

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If you don’t already know Fitenium is a free, mobile, video-based social network for athletes who train strength or bodyweight exercises. At Fitenium users can follow their performance, compete and get discounts in nutrition and sports equipment stores. Download it here.

Gym plateauing is one of those things you don’t want to come but is inevitable. If you notice that there is no change in your pectoral and that you cannot add kilos to the bar in the old basics, it seems like a good idea to try a few different things to activate the pectoral in different ways and that, along with the basics that should not be abandoned, They will help you break through plateaus and keep making progress in your training. This list of 10 pectoral exercises you didn’t know about will help you work angles you’ve never worked before and crush your pectorals to get out of a rut.

Before starting with the list, it is important to talk about the activation of the pectoral. Scientific evidence suggests that activation and warm-up exercises improve the recruitment of the muscles involved in the exercise.

Therefore, perhaps before changing your routine and adding new exercises, you should consider whether your warm-up is good enough to activate the muscles. If not, it is very interesting to carry out a warm-up-activation routine like the following:

1×15 Shoulder Circumduction – Video
1×15 Elbow Rotation – Video
1×12 Internal Rotation Humerus on Pulley/Elastic Band – Video
1×12 External Rotation Humerus on Pulley/Elastic Band – Video
1×12 Pulley/Elastic Band Unilateral Open – Video
1×12 Birds on Pulley/Elastic Band – Video
1×10 Scapular Flexions – Video

With this warm-up and activation routine, we will improve the recruitment of our chest and we will be able to progress in loads safely and efficiently. Once we know how to warm up and activate our pectoral, we go to the list of 10 pectoral exercises that you didn’t know about, add them to your routine as accessories and work your pectoral like never before.

1. Press Landmine: este ejercicio es sorprendentemente desconocido teniendo en cuenta lo efectivo que es, recluta muy bien nuestro pectoral, hombro y tríceps. In addition, the neutral grip is very healthy for our shoulders, so it is especially recommended for athletes with shoulder discomfort.

2. Ladmine Openings: If the landmine press was already unknown, this version of the landmine type openings is even more so. Get ready for an analytical and technical exercise where instability is key to working your chest in a different way.

3. “Squeeze” grip push-ups: we can perform this type of push-ups both holding a bar and with a kettlebell or rings. We add a component of instability and a great pectoral contraction due to the inward force that we do constantly.

4. Press Hex: We use the neutral grip again to have a more comfortable posture for the shoulder and to contract the chest as much as possible during the course of this exercise. Thanks to this constant tension, you will feel your chest burn!

5. Reverse grip bench press: according to a Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College study, the reverse grip bench press involved up to 30% more upper pecs compared to its standard version. It is clear that you will move less load with this version, but it is interesting for when you want to specifically affect the upper pectoral in a different way.

6. Slider Flyes: This calisthenics exercise requires a pair of slider discs, which are so versatile and cheap that you should go get a pair right away if you don’t have them. You basically imitate flyes from a push-up position. If you think that push-ups are not enough for you, try this version that isolates our pectorals even more.

7. Chain Bench Press: Although this is technically a Bench Press, using chains causes the load to build up throughout the rep. Among the pectoral exercises that you did not know, this one does not work perfectly to improve speed, strength and power.

8. Lateral Pulley Press: We are not going to discover the pulley exercises, but this version is one of the ones that isolates the pectoral the most, practically eliminating the shoulder from the equation. It is also a perfect exercise to give work to the upper pectoral.

9. Floor Press: It stands out mainly for its transfer to the Bench Press when we get stuck in the final part of the exercise. Both with dumbbells and with a bar, it is a very useful exercise to gain strength in the torso.

Ring push-ups/TRX: this exercise, very difficult to execute correctly, apart from working the pectoral, generates a very good activation in our middle zone.

Bonus. Press Banca: Although this article deals with different exercises that we can do, we must not leave out the classic bench press as this is still the quintessential builder of strength and hypertrophy in the torso. We can try interesting variations such as series with pause, slow descending, one and half, descending, myoreps… there are many options to break a stagnation.

That said, there are always interesting options for when it seems that we are not progressing and we are not stimulating the pectoral well. It always helps to do different exercises that work other planes that we don’t usually touch, and with this guide to pectoral exercises that you didn’t know about, we’re sure that this list will help you have more variety in your workouts.

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