From Shoulder to Overhead - The Straightest Path

Greetings Fitters,

 And let me begin by apologizing for the long hiatus.  Some crazy big things have been going on in my career and personal fitness lives, but that is no excuse to leave you stranded in the ocean of fitness knowledge, on your island of what you know, looking out to what could be. The biggest truth is that I began running out of deeply philosophical beliefs of my own personal outlook on fitness, and became completely entangled in the belief that I could not continue to post without some ground-breaking "truth" to enlighten you all with.

But after much debate, I have decided to set forth once more into issuing knowledge about fitness, nutrition, health, and what-have-yous to all that care to listen. But to continue these posts unabated, I have decided to mildly divert my focus to a wider breadth of topics. Thus leading us to tonight's post: From Shoulder to Overhead - The Straightest Path, or as I have subtitled, "Don't Hit Your Damn Chin with a Barbell."

This topic came too me abruptly, hell it practically slammed me in the face (pun intended). Tonight, as I was working on my Clean and Jerk (barbell from ground to shoulder, then shoulder to overhead, in a nutshell), I mistakenly failed to remove my head from the path of the bar. Well, if two objects try to occupy the same space at the same time, a collision is bound to occur. Thus, I got uppercut by a 155 lb. barbell that I forced into my own face.

So why is my pain important to you? Well, it teaches us all something valuable, the path of the barbell going overhead. 

Many people avoid training in the overhead position for two very common reasons:

1) They don't want to drop something on their heads

2) They hurt when they get overhead (shoulders, elbows, neck, etc.)

These are two very lackluster excuses, for two very important reasons:

1) You won't drop it on your head if you know how to lift it over your head properly.

2) You shouldn't avoid a movement because it hurts, you should learn how to do that movement correctly so it doesn't hurt!

Now this post isn't about overhead training in terms of the importance, working on overhead mobility, etc. This post is going to teach you one thing, the path of the bar overhead.

Any time we move a load of any sort, one commonality remains constant; the closer we keep the load to our midline, the easier it is to move that load (see figure below). Why is this? Because the farther that weight gets away from our center of gravity, the longer the lever (arm, leg, torso, etc.) is holding it, and the greater the force required to hold/lift it. Imagine holding a bowling ball against your chest. Now imagine holding a bowling ball three feet in front of you. Are your arms tired yet?

Center line of body in all planes. The closer you keep a load to the point where they intersect, the easier it is to move.

Don't lean back, move the head back!

 So, to move a load overhead from the shoulder (assuming a barbell is your method of transportation of said load), it would make sense that moving straight up through the head would be best. "The shortest distance between two points is a straight line", no? But to do so, we need to move the head, or else suffer the consequences (see video below for a good laugh).  But we must also consider this: moving the head back may lead to leaning back, which hyperextends the spine and places us in a poor spinal position. The cure? Press the head straight back, and out of the way of the bar, without extending the spine. Here's how:




1) With an extremely light bar for practice, and with the bar on your shoulders and elbows slightly in front of the bar, begin pressing the bar straight upwards.
2) When the bar gets directly below the chin, press the head straight back as if trying to make the biggest double chin of your life (it doesn't have to be pretty, it has to be SAFE, and this keeps the spine neutral), keeping the crown of the head as high as possible.
3) Once the bar is slightly over the head, replace the head in a forward position, and lock the arms overhead.
4) return in the straight line from which you came, and when the light bar brushes the tippy-top of the forehead, press the head back in the same way as before. As you get heavier, you will know the best time to press the head back, but touching the top of the forehead with a light bar is a good place to start.
5) Return the weight to the shoulders, return the head to neutral, and celebrate your first perfect overhead press (after you put down the weight!).

Remember to avoid the weight going out and around the head. This is fine with a light load, but we always want to imagine we have 300 lbs. in our hands. Once that load gets heavy, your shoulders won't be able to support that much weight being that far from your midline.


Look for more posts on overhead work, as we all need help in this department. Don't believe you need to do overhead stuff? Try going a day without putting your hand higher than your  forehead. Seriously...try it. Let me know what minute of the day you have to put your hand up there. If you make it past 9:00am, I'll give you a prize. :) But until then, work on that overhead, keep that chin safe, and remember...

Stay Fit.