ehh i dont really know if overhead press is better than bench press for shoulders Lance, have read and heard about a lot of people not recommended over head press because of potential shoulder problems. Still a bench press with a crazy wide grip and some flaring elbows is bound to cause problems real fast
If youre talking about joe defrancos views on it, keep reading more articles, like the one christian thibadeau and glenn pendlay wrote debunking the myths defranco talked about in his article. Olympic lifters have some of the healthiest shoulders amoung any group of athletes, they do a massive amount of overhead work and very little horizontal pressing if any. Rippetoe has some good things on it too. I have had soooooo much less shoulder problems since implementing a 2/1 ratio of overhead work to bench work with myself and my athletes that there is no doubt in my mind who is right and who is wrong. People who a.) dont know how to press correctly ( this is a surprising number, more info is being put out there are still many people doing ohp incorrectly) or b.) have never used a correctly done standing press or push press and dont know what theyre talking about, the limit of their knowledge boils down to what they heard or read from other coaches.
internal and external rotations can help some, along with a few other prehab movements
the external rotation that occurs at the top of the standing press and push press is one of the MAIN benefits of including the lift in a program involving presses. When the head is driven through and traps shrugged up, the top portion of the press is EXTREMELY beneficial for shoulder rehab/prehab.
Anyone have any good kind of shoulder/upper body prehab routine or anything? Prob should start including it in my routine as dont do much besides some upper body stretches and back foam roll.
yep, learn to do a standing press correctly and implement them.
I Don't Agree...
by Christian Thibaudeau - 02/08/2011
Good coaches can sometimes disagree on some points even though they are generally in agreement on other subjects.
And both can boast a wide range of success stories, making them reliable in their opinion (you can't argue with success).
Doesn't mean that one is "more wrong" than the other or that both are going at wr against each other.
Joe DeFranco's latest article includes an opinion that I don't agree with, and I'm saying that while having nothing but tremendous respect for the guy.
He mentions that we should avoid the overhead press if you are trying to build your shoulders. That only one out of X athlete can perform it safely.
Since the overhead press is the cornerstone of most of my programs, I don't agree (obviously).
My shoulders were never healthier than when I competed as an olympic lifter, a time where overhead pressing, the push press and jerk were roughly 25% of my training.
In fact I never had any shoulder pains before going away from doing a lot of overhead work. And as soon as I started putting an emphasis on various forms of overhead pressing instead of bench pressing my shoulder problems went away.
And I'm not the only one, Jim Wendler told me the exact same thing when I visited him and Dave in Ohio.
Glenn Pendlay, who is an amazing coach who works with athletes from many sports also put overhead work at a premium, specifically the push press.
And as a group, olympic lifters generally have VERY healthy shoulders despite doing overhead work for 50% of their training volume.
It is my opinion that those who have shoulder problems when overhead pressing simply use bad technique or have flexibiility issues.
02-08-2011 08:09
Personally I tend to agree with Glenn Pendlay and believe that the push press is the suprior overhead movement. It bypasses the weak zone, which is also the position where most injuries can occur. From experience it's the best movement to build the shoulders.
I also noticed with myself and dozens of clients, that gains in overhead strength are highly correlated with gains in bench pressing strength; I had my biggest bench press gains when I did an overhead press sp
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, he competes in RAW powerlifting, where a belt and WRAPS are considered RAW. Alot of the olympic lifters squatting "raw" are using rehband knee sleeves, that some people claim give them more out of the hole than wraps do, youre starting to see more powerlifters switch to them over wraps. Put on a pair of wraps and see how much help you get out of them. 
to take "longer" steps, especially when youre sprinting, you essentially put the brakes on and put the body in a very bad position to produce force. Longer strides and steps come primarily from more powerful ground contacts, not over reaching on strides or steps. If youre going to stretch alot you may want to look into pnf stretches or iso holds in the stretch position, intensive and too frequent static stretching without involving a strengthening element can be detrimental to athletes movements on the court/field and end up causing injuries in the long run.