Overview
This is the upper body compound movement of vertically pushing.
You’re probably coming at this from one of two places.
If you’re still starting out in your first two or three years of intentional lifting, the major movement patterns should be your bread and butter. The standout exercises listed here should be the core part of your programming, rotating every so often (we’re talking months, not weeks). At a certain point we likely get diminishing returns specialising in one or two exercises, but if it’s your first few years in of serious lifting, you are assuredly far, far away from that point.
If you’re an experienced advanced lifter, chances are you’re viewing your through a 12 muscle groups lens or multiple movement slots within each muscle group. Even so, it’s still worth periodically checking your programs aren’t going so far as to neglect all the compounds, and occasionally cycling some of these exercises back in.
For everyone in between, take the middle point between those two parameters.
Description
We’re looking for a compound exercise that targets the shoulders and triceps, with some upper chest.
Either with the exercise selection or exercise form, we generally want all three muscle groups to get as close to failure as possible.
In this sense we have the opposite aim when dissecting things from a ‘muscle group’ perspective, where we generally want to isolate a certain muscle.
There are many specific exercises that can work here; there are tens or dozens (depending on how nitpicky you want to be with classifying a different exercise) of exercises that is a vertical pushing motion.
There’s not going to much value add in just listing endless options, instead we’ll stick to some key foundational ones that categorically work, hence the two options above.
Again, to repeat – if you’re around your second or third year into intentional lifting, your focus should be precisely here. If you’re advanced, you’ll be well aware there are endless variations and these may simply serve as a checkpoint to ensure you don’t have a gap in your training.
Standout exercises
For vertical pushing, there are two standout exercises:
- Dip
- Barbell Overhead Press
Dip
It’s the same situation with horizontal pushing. The first priority is to master a bodyweight exercise, then transition to a barbell exercise.
Strictly speaking, we are cheating a bit here as the dip is more of a decline press than a vertical one. However, that technicality doesn’t take away from the pure efficacy of the exercise.
Again as a bodyweight there will be regressions and progressions.
- Dip regression: assisted dip machine
- Standard dip: bodyweight dip
- Dip progression: weighted dip
Dip regressions
If you’re currently unable to do a complete dip, the best regression is likely going to be on an assisted dip machine. This matches your hand and body position and allows you to work at the appropriate rep ranges.
If you don’t have access to this machine, you’ll want to jerry rig a setup that allows you to have your hands pointed out to the side, for example standing between two jump boxes. Here you can perform dip negatives; jumping up into position then lowering yourself under control.
A chair/bench dip is not recommended because it puts your wrists in an awkward position under a lot of stress, while having minimal range of motion on the actual triceps.
Standard dip
Once you have the strength required to perform bodyweight dips, we can really get the ball rolling.
The first thing to get to grips with is your hand position, which will partly depend on what equipment you have access to.
In general a neutral grip will work for most people, for example on an assisted dip machine with the pad disengaged, or the dip/pull-up station. Most assisted dip machines will have two widths; you probably want one that’s around one fist wider than shoulder width or so. For most people who are under 6 feet, that’s probably the narrower of the two; you’ll likely know if you need the wider one.
Many dip handle attachments on a squat rack have an angled grip; experiment with it and see if you prefer that or a neutral grip based on any aches or niggles with the wrist, elbow and shoulder.
Once you sort out the grip, the form comes pretty easily.
- Start with the elbows locked out, bring your shoulders back and down
- Keep pressure in your rib cage, and as you lower yourself breath in, expanding your chest. When you press back up, breath out.
- Remember this is an all-rounder dip, not a tricep dominant or chest dominant dip. So as you lower your torso by bending the elbow, the elbow should move moderately behind your wrist (as opposed to keeping it stacked with a chest dip, or maximally driving the elbow back in a tricep dip), while keeping tension in the chest.
The key again is going to be figuring out a full range of motion.
There’s no such thing as going too high, but you can go too low with a dip.
At the top of the dip, focus on driving your shoulders maximally down (scapula depression). You may find you’ve been missing half an inch or so of movement; you want to capture that range of motion and get control in there.
The bottom of the dip should be the lowest point where you can still keep pressure in your rib cage. For most people, this should be approximately 90 degrees of elbow bend, or perhaps 100 degrees. You should not be contorting your shoulders and torso into an awkward position to get an extra half inch of ROM.
Be comfortable with the notion that you may gradually increase your top and bottom end range of motion over time, as you build more strength and gain more control. Achieving full ROM can be a gradual process.
Dip progressions
For a lot of general population folks, repping out bodyweight dips might already be the end goal (and is a pretty impressive feat already!).
If you can do one set of 10 reps of bodyweight dips under control, it’s time to progress onto weighted dips.
Initially, you can squeeze a light dumbbell between your knees or feet; over time you may need a dip belt.
Form remains identical and this is simply a load progression that can continue indefinitely.
As a completely arbitrary rule of thumb, we could say that 10kg is a manageable weight that you can handle between your feet.
So assuming you don’t have access to a dip belt, the final standard before moving on to the subsequent exercise is one set of 10 reps of a 10kg dip.
Barbell Overhead Press
As you can see compared to the horizontal pushing movements, there is less of a necessity to transition from the bodyweight exercise to the barbell exercise as dips are both harder, and easier to load further, than push-ups.
On the other hand we will never promote any singular best exercise; as the concept is fundamentally flawed and we are neglecting mental variety, training different muscle fibres, minimising accumulated joint stress, and so on.
The barbell OHP is still a great option, and indeed you may want to sub it in on occasion before you reach the 10kg dip for 10 reps mark.
Before you do a standing OHP, I encourage everybody who can (this may depend on your gym) to practise a ‘rack OHP’ variation first for a few weeks or even a few months. You won’t be losing any gains and it’ll make the eventual transition smoother.
Form remains similar; this is still done standing, and you are pressing a barbell from roughly your clavicle height to over your head with your elbows locked out. The difference is you start with the barbell smashed against the squat rack, then you press the barbell up while having it drag up against the squat rack.
On to the actual OHP form.
- Unrack the bar and hold it by your clavicle. Bring your chest up, keep a mostly neutral lower spine, and squeeze your glutes.
- Squeeze your hands, tilt your head back (to give room for the bar to move) and drive the elbows up, locking out the elbows.
- At the same time, drive your feet into the floor (imagine you’re trapped in a room with a descending ceiling, Indiana Jones style, and you need to both press up with your hands and push down with your feet).
- As you lower the bar, breathe in and expand your chest, keeping pressure in your rib cage.