Assistance Exercises for Overhead Press – Introduction
What are the best overhead press assistance exercises?
The barbell bench press is often considered to be the king of upper-body exercises.
After all, the bench press is the third big lift in the sport of powerlifting (besides squats and deadlifts), and Monday is National Bench Press Day in gyms worldwide.
Get two gym-goers together and, invariably, the conversion will turn to the bench press, and one will ask the other, “Bro, how much do you bench?”
This wasn’t always the case.
In fact, the bench press is a relatively new strength training exercise, invented around the mid-1940s.
Before that, if you wanted to develop or demonstrate your upper body strength, you did overhead presses.
Up until 1972, the barbell overhead press was the third main lift in Olympic lifting, besides the snatch and clean and jerk.
However, a tendency for the lifters to lean back and turn the overhead press into a sort of standing incline press made the exercise hard to judge, not to mention unsafe.
As a result, the sport of Olympic Weightlifting dropped the overhead press.
The overhead press is still featured in strongman events, though.
While not as popular as the bench press, the overhead press deserves a place in your workouts.
It’s a challenging exercise, but there is something very satisfying about pressing a heavy weight above your head.
In this article, we reveal the best assistance exercises for a bigger overhead press.
Overhead Press Anatomy 101
The overhead press is a compound exercise.
While it is commonly referred to as a military press as well, there are key differences between these two compound shoulder exercises.
Where the military press requires your feet together and minimal lower body involvement, the strict overhead press uses a shoulder-with stance.
For that reason, there is additional lower body recruitment in the overhead press and greater stress on your shoulder joint and muscles in the military press, which is why the military press has fallen out of favor.
That said, both of these shoulder press movements involve multiple joints and muscle groups working together.
While it’s not essential to learn the names of these muscles (there won’t be a quiz!), it can be helpful when choosing the best exercises to boost your overhead press performance.
The main muscles involved in the overhead press are:
Deltoids
The deltoids are your main shoulder muscles.
There are three sets of deltoid fibers or heads:
- Anterior (front) – pictured in red
- Medial (middle) – green
- Posterior (rear) – in blue
All three deltoids are involved in the overhead press, but the anterior head is the most active, while the other two act mainly as stabilizers.
The Deltoid Should Muscles
Triceps brachii
Located on the back of your upper arms and usually known just as the triceps, this muscle extends your elbow as you press the weight upward.
For most lifters, the triceps is the weak link that limits overhead pressing performance.
Triceps Brachii Three-Headed Muscle Seen From Behind
Trapezius
The trapezius is the large diamond-shaped muscle of your upper back.
Like the deltoids, there are three sets of fibers, each with a different role to play:
- Upper trapezius
- Middle trapezius
- Lower trapezius
All three parts of the trapezius are involved in overhead presses.
The middle and lower fibers pull your shoulders down and back to stabilize your shoulder girdle, while the upper traps help elevate your shoulders at the end of each rep and prevent your shoulders from being pressed downward by the weight.
Upper, Middle, and Lower Trapezius Muscle Fibers
Core
The core is the collective term for the muscles of your midsection.
These muscles include:
- Rectus abdominis – front of the abdomen, known as the abs for short
- Transverse abdominis – your natural weightlifting belt that encircles your waist
- Erector spinae – the muscles of your lower back
- Obliques – your waist muscles
The core muscles contract inward to increase intra-abdominal pressure, or IAP for short, to help stabilize your lumbar spine and take the stress off your lower back.
Core Muscles Used in the Overhead Press
Legs
The overhead press is a standing exercise, so, as such, your legs are involved too.
That said, while you’ll be using your legs during the overhead press, their involvement is minimal, so don’t expect your legs to get bigger or stronger.
However, some of the assistance exercises that’ll lead to a bigger, stronger overhead press do recruit your legs, albeit indirectly.
7 Best Overhead Press Assistance Exercises
The best way to get better at overhead presses is to do more overhead presses.
That’s the training law of exercise specificity in action.
You will get better results when you do more overhead presses!
That said, there are several exercises you can use to enhance your performance of the overhead press, usually by working on the weak links that could be holding you back.
Supplement your overhead pressing workouts with the following exercises to lift bigger weights.
#1. Push press
Target muscles: Deltoids, triceps, core, legs
Overhead presses are usually done with no assistance from your legs.
However, the push press uses leg drive to help you lift more weight.
When you lower the bar, you overload your muscles with more weight than you can typically handle.
As a result, you build bigger shoulders, get stronger, and will be able to strict press bigger loads.
How to do it:
- Rack and hold your barbell across the front of your shoulders.
- Use your regular overhead press grip, that is, overhand, hands just wider than shoulder-width apart.
- Brace your core and stand with your feet about shoulder to hip-width apart.
- Bend your knees and descend into a quarter-depth squat.
- Explosively extend your legs and use this momentum to help you push the weight overhead to arms’ length.
- Under control, lower the bar back down to your shoulders and repeat.
- You can also do this exercise using dumbbells.
Power Clean – Push Press – Push Jerk – Split Jerk
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#2. Dips
Target muscles: Deltoids, triceps, core
The overhead press is a test of triceps and shoulder strength.
For a lot of lifters, it’s the triceps that are the weakest link.
Dips are an effective triceps exercise, but you will need something like a power tower to do them.
How to do it:
- Hold the parallel bars with your palms facing inward.
- Step or jump up and support your weight on your straight arms.
- Push your shoulders down and back and brace your core.
- Bend your legs and cross your ankles if you wish.
- Bend your arms and lower yourself down until your elbows are bent to about 90-degrees.
- Push yourself back up and repeat.
- If you can do more than 12 reps, make dips more challenging by wearing a weighted vest or using a chin/dip belt.
- Alternatively, clamp and hold a dumbbell between your legs.
Triceps workout program – diamond pushups, dips, step up planks, inward planks
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#3. Javelin press
Target muscles: Deltoids, triceps, core
The overhead press requires good shoulder stability and core strength.
If you wobble, you’ll waste energy that would be better used pushing the bar upward.
The javelin press is a challenging exercise but, after doing it, regular overhead presses will feel much easier.
How to do it:
- Put a barbell in a squat rack set to just below shoulder height.
- Stand sideways onto the bar and grip the middle so your palm faces your ear.
- Brace your abs and unrack the bar.
- Keeping your body upright, press the weight up and overhead without using your legs for help.
- Lower the bar back to your shoulder and repeat.
- Do the same number of reps on each side.
- You can also do this exercise with a single dumbbell or kettlebell, but that’s much less challenging and, therefore, not as effective.
Javelin Press
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#4. Arnold press
Target muscles: Deltoids, triceps, core
The Arnold press is named after bodybuilding legend Arnold Schwarzenegger.
It’s an excellent dumbbell press for building bigger, more muscular shoulders.
If you are bored of regular overhead presses, this exercise will make your workouts interesting and productive again.
How to do it:
- Seated or standing, grab a dumbbell in each hand.
- Raise the weights up and hold them in front of your shoulders as if you’re midway through a rep of hammer curls.
- Brace your core and pull your shoulders down and back.
- Open your arms and simultaneously press the weights up and overhead.
- Return to the starting position and repeat.
Arnold Press
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#5. Bradford press
Target muscles: Deltoids, triceps, core
The Bradford press is a lesser-known variation of the overhead press exercise.
It keeps your shoulders under constant tension, making it very useful for deltoid hypertrophy.
However, the Bradford press requires good shoulder mobility, so only attempt this if you have healthy, flexible shoulders.
How to do it:
- Rack and hold your barbell across the front of your shoulders.
- Use your normal overhead press grip, that is, overhand, hands just wider than shoulder-width apart.
- Brace your core and stand with your feet about shoulder to hip-width apart.
- Press the weight up and over your head, so it barely clears the top of your skull.
- Lower the weight down to lightly touch the back of your neck.
- Press the weight back up and over and return to the starting position.
- That’s one rep; keep going!
- Remember, the bar should only just clear your head.
- Do NOT lock your elbows.
Bradford Press
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#6. Overhead pin press
Target muscles: Deltoids, triceps, core
The overhead pin press is a strict overhead press.
It involves starting each overhead press rep from a dead stop.
This makes them harder, and harder is good for building overhead strength.
You’ll need a squat rack or power rack to do this exercise.
How to do it:
- Put a barbell in a squat rack set to shoulder height.
- Without unracking the bar, adopt your normal overhead pressing grip and stance.
- Brace your core and pull your shoulders down and back.
- Press the bar in a straight line up and out of the rack until it’s overhead.
- Lower the bar back down to the pins, allow it to settle for 1-2 seconds, and then repeat.
- Do not use your legs for assistance; this is a strict press.
Overhead Pin Press
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#7. Z press
Target muscles: Deltoids, triceps, core
The Z press is named after the strongman Žydrūnas Savickas, better known as Big Z, a legendary overhead presser who holds or has held many pressing and deadlift world records.
The Z press was one of his favorite overhead pressing assistance lifts, targeting your core, as well as the usual delts and triceps.
How to do it:
- Place your bar at about hip height in a squat or power rack.
- Sit on the floor beneath the bar with your legs straight and apart for balance.
- Sit up tall, brace your abs, and hold the bar with your usual overhead pressing grip.
- Do not lean forward or back.
- Lift your chest.
- Unrack the bar and, keeping your core tight, press the bar up and overhead.
- Lower the bar back to your shoulders and repeat.
Z Press
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Overhead Press Assistance Exercises – Wrapping Up
While there is nothing wrong with the bench press, it’s not the only way to develop upper-body pressing power and muscle mass.
The overhead press is a great exercise and a worthy challenger to the bench press!
Train the overhead press regularly and supplement your workouts with these assistance exercisers.
Don’t try and use them all at once; that’s a recipe for overtraining and injury.
Instead, pick just 2-3, use them for a few weeks, and then replace them with another couple of exercises from our list.
But don’t forget the law of specificity.
If you want to be a better overhead presser, the overhead press should be the cornerstone of your upper body workouts.
Learn to Overhead Press with Coach Mark Rippetoe
What’s Next
As you know, the training principle of specificity says that to get better at something, you need to do it regularly.
So, if you want a stronger bench press, you need to bench press heavy weights at least one time a week consistently until you reach your fitness goals.
That said, in addition to the bench press, there are several exercises that will help improve your bench press performance, either directly by increasing chest and triceps strength or indirectly by developing a more muscular upper back and a more stable shoulder joint.
To that end, see The 10 Best Exercises to Improve Your Bench Press Strength.
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