Special thanks to Alia, our new resident photographer!!

For most of us, the press is our weakest lift, relative to all the other power lifts.  For months now, my linear press progression has undergone many a reset and I have yet to PR in quite a while.  To be perfectly honest, I also didn’t pursue improvement all that much, finding it much more fun to just gloss over it and work on “fun” lifts like the jerk, snatch, etc.  Not surprisingly enough, these lifts have stalled as well (duh) and I find myself back at square one, staring the press in the face.

Bill Starr’s article about the Quest for a Stronger Overhead Press talks about ways to get over the Press Plateau.

Going to triples: If you’re like me and stalling on your linear progression of 3×5′s, start with your usual warm up sets of 5 and work to 3 sets of 3 reps (3×3). Finish with a burn out of 1×10-15 @ 80-85%. The following week, increase your work sets until you complete 6 sets of 3 reps (6×3) before increasing the weight by 5#.

Dips/Weighted Dips: We’ll also be working in dips, ring dips, and weighted dips as Bill Starr has found this movement to really help increase the press. Though he mostly saw improvement only after the weighted dips exceeded 100#, we’ll be throwing in more dips throughout warm ups and WODs.

In addition to the above, he also mentioned a couple of other exercises that can help the this lift which I’ll cover next time we press.

WOD 07.09.10

Press 3×5 or 3×3, 1×10-15 (80-85% work set)

In Teams of 2:
AMRAP 10
100m run
5 pull ups
5 squats

One partner runs while one partner pulls/squats. Tag out at pull up bar. If your partner uses bands, help them in/out of them before you run.