ExRx.net

I've decided to drop Hang Cleans and go back to doing Standing Military Presses for two reasons. Firstly, I want to give my erectors a full week to recover after deadlifting on leg day, and secondly because the initial pull in a hang clean closely resembles a barbell upright row, an exercise that has given my trouble in the past.

I usually just take a bench to a squat rack. I usually then monopolize the rack for my shoulder workout. After military presses I go into hang cleans, upright rows, and behind the neck presses. No one complains, but then again, I only see people squatting with the smith machine.

I tried doing Push Presses today for the first time since high school. Back then, I was using a fairly wide grip, which forced me to lean backwards to avoid cracking myself in the chin/nose. This made push presses very uncomfortable for my back, and greatly reduced the effectiveness of the exercise. It also made if difficult for me to maintain my ballance at times.

Anyway, this time I used the same narrow (roughly shoulder width) grip, I've been using for regular Military Presses, and they felt great. I went up to 185 lbs for 3 reps with only a tiny amount of help from my legs.

Afterwards, I did three super-sets of Dumbbell Laterals and Bent-over Laterals. By the end I could barely lift my arms.

Anyway, I think I'm going to switch to Push Presses instead of strict Standing Military Presses, since I have a hard time staying 100% strict on heavy Military Presses anyway.

Hi Matt. You could always get the best of both worlds and mix them up. I know you usually do higher reps than I do, but when I'm doing 5's, I'll do 3 presses and 2 push presses. Just a thought

I may do that. Plus, I'm definitely going to go strict on my initial warmup sets.