Pressing and Overhead Athletes

Pressing and Overhead Athletes

I get asked a lot if we train our overhead athletes (baseball, volleyball, swimming, QBs) with the bench press. And the answer is yes but it’s not a staple in their program. We teach proper technique to all of our athletes which in turn drastically reduces the stress on the shoulder joint. Now the bench press is seen as dangerous as the barbell locks the athlete into an internally rotated position as the grip is pronated. A position that most overhead athletes are in when they play their sports. This can put an impingement on the rotator cuff. So one thing we like to use is the EliteFTS swiss press par. This takes the athletes from a pronated/internally rotated grip to a neutral grip. By doing this it externally rotates the humerus and takes stress off of the rotator cuff. So yes we do use a barbell bench press with our overhead athletes but for the most part we do our pressing with a neutral grip. 

Since the overhead athlete is in an internal position most of the time we want to strengthen the shoulder in an external position along with the upper back. We favor a lot of externally rotate movements. Band pull a parts with an underhand grip, chin ups with a neutral grip and rows with a neutral grip. We also follow a 2:1 push to press ratio on upper body days. Now with squatting we like to use the EliteFTS safety squat bar. This dramatically reduces the stress on an athletes shoulders and also strengthens the upper back. With our overhead athletes we want the athlete to effectively transfer forces from the lower body through the upper body. So we focus a lot on anti-movement pattern for core training. By doing so this will place less stress on the shoulder joint.

Overhead athelete training:

• Use a neutral grip or underhand grip
• Strengthen the upper back
• Strengthen the shoulders/upperback using external rotation movements
• Incoporate proper pre-hab and rehab into their warmups
• Use a safety squat bar
• Use anti-movement exercises like Palloff variations, one arm dumbbell bench press, DB rack walks, DB/KB suitcase carries
• Do a lot of band pull a parts