Vertical push exercises

Vertical push exercises consist of various barbell and dumbbell presses. In this article, I'll list and briefly describe 11 of these overhead presses so you can vary your push workouts with different exercises.

Introduction

What vertical push exercises can you use in your push-pull-legs workout?

In this article, I'll list and describe 11 great vertical push exercises you can do during your push workout in the gym.

1. Barbell Overhead Press

The barbell overhead press is a foundational strength exercise that primarily targets your deltoids, triceps, and trapezius. Most of the other exercises that I'll describe in this article are in some way a variation of the barbell overhead press.

With the barbell at shoulder level, you push it above your head until your arms are fully extended. It helps to build your upper body strength and works on developing stability in your shoulders and your core.

You can do many variations with the barbell overhead press, such as changing grip width and foot stance (for example, standing both feet should width apart or standing in a split) to target different parts of your shoulders and work on the balancing aspect differently.

All in all, the barbell overhead press is a main compound exercise that you HAVE to include in your training program (or some variation of it, hence, this list) if you're serious about fitness (no matter what your goal is!).

2. Barbell Push Press

The barbell push press is a dynamic and explosive variation of the overhead press.

A push press is so called because you have to do a slight dip in your knees first before forcefully extending your legs and pushing the weight up.

By using a dip, you create momentum to assist you in driving the barbell over your head. Hence, this makes it possible to lift more weight compared to a strict press, which makes a push press more suited to build strength and explosiveness in your shoulders.

Again, as with the barbell overhead press, the barbell push press also helps you to build overall vertical stability throughout your body and helps in improving your coordination as you go from a dip to a full overhead position.

3. Handstand Push Up

Handstand push-ups are an advanced bodyweight exercise that challenges shoulder strength, balance, and stability.

You can do a handstand position against a wall or freestanding. No matter which of the two you do, when in the handstand position, you have to lower your body down by bending your arms and then push yourself back up to a fully extended position.

It targets your shoulders, triceps, and trapezius muscles while requiring substantial core engagement to maintain the upright position.

Be warned, though, this is an advanced exercise that requires powerful shoulder muscles to do even one repetition!...so if you're still a beginner, it's best to skip this exercise and pick a different one from the list in this blog post.

This exercise is popular among those who love calisthenics and gymnasts for developing upper body strength and body control.

4. Standing Single-arm Dumbbell Shoulder Press

The Standing Single-arm Dumbbell Shoulder Press is a unilateral exercise where you perform a complete set of overhead presses one arm at a time.

This movement improves your shoulder stability and helps you to correct any muscle imbalances you may have in your shoulders in particular. It also activates your core for balance and support.

I also found that when doing Standing Single-arm Dumbbell Shoulder Presses, my shoulder muscles (the deltoids) are activated more than my trapezius muscles when compared to doing a bilateral overhead pressing exercise such as the Barbell Overhead Press. That doesn't mean your traps don't get activated at all with this exercise, but instead...it means that the focus is more on your deltoids. So.... if you want to increase your deltoids' mass and strength, this exercise is what you might need!

By using dumbbells, each of your shoulders works independently, preventing one side from compensating for the other. The standing position further engages stabilizing muscles throughout your whole body. This exercise can be especially helpful if you want to address and improve differences in symmetry in your shoulders (whether those differences are strength-based, size/mass of your muscles or stability issues).

5. Behind the Neck Press

The Behind the Neck (BTN) Barbell Press is a close variation of the Barbell Overhead Press. As with the Barbell Overhead Press, you start with the barbell at shoulder height, but in contrast to the Barbell Overhead Press, you rest the barbell on your back (your trapezius muscle) in the BTN Barbell Press. From this position (which is the starting position for this exercise), you push the weight up and above your head until your arms are fully extended.

The BTN Barbell Press targets your shoulders (the deltoids), triceps, and trapezius muscles just as the Barbell Overhead Press does. However, it targets your medial and posterior deltoids more than the regular Barbell Overhead Press does.

Another thing to note is that the BTN Barbell Press may be more difficult to perform standard Barbell Overhead Press, as it requires more mobility and flexibility in your shoulders. This means you might find this exercise placing too much strain on your shoulders and neck and, all in all, to be an uncomfortable exercise in general. This makes the BTN Barbell Press not suitable for everyone and may even result in shoulder pain (or even injury!) if you lack the mobility and flexibility for this exercise.

In general, if you're a beginner, I don't recommend doing this exercise. Instead, work on your shoulder strength with one of this list's many other vertical push exercises. As you develop more strength, mobility, and flexibility in your shoulders, you can slowly implement this exercise in your training routine once you're a year or 2 or 3 further into your fitness journey.

6. Pike Push Ups

Pike push-ups are a variation on, or rather, a mix, of the Handstand Push-ups I described previously and a conventional bodyweight push-up.

Pike push-ups emphasize your shoulders and triceps but also work your upper chest muscles.

To perform a pike push-up, get in a regular push-up position and bring your feet closer to your hands so your body makes a triangle with the floor and your butt is pointing up. You can think of the downward dog yoga pose to get the position right.

From this starting position, you lower your head towards the ground by bending your arms and then push back up to the starting position.

This movement engages your shoulders in a unique way. It requires a strong core to maintain your stability throughout the exercise. It's a great variation on the much more difficult-to-perform Handstand Push-ups, and they're more suited for beginners.

The great thing about Pike push-ups is that you can adjust the difficulty by changing the angle of your body or using elevated surfaces.

To make the Pike Push-ups easier:

• Make the angle of your body larger (i.e., your butt is lower to the ground) and/or,
• Place your hands on an elevated surface (such as books).

To make the Pike Push-ups harder:

• Make the angle of your body smaller (i.e., your butt is higher up), and/or,
• Place your feet on an elevated surface (such as books).

7. Snatch Push Press

The Snatch Push Press is an explosive weightlifting movement that combines elements of the snatch and push press.

The starting position is the same as the Behind the Neck Press (i.e., the barbell is resting on your trapezius behind your neck), but you’ll hold the barbell with a wide grip. From this starting position, you need to dip slightly through your knees, then extend your legs and forcefully push the weight up until your arms are fully extended and locked out.

The Snatch Push Press may not be as effective in developing your deltoids as the BTN Barbell Press, but it's a great exercise to develop overall upper body strength, muscle coordination, explosiveness, and work on your overhead balancing.

It's also an exercise you MUST do if you want to get into Olympic weightlifting (together with many more overhead pressing exercises that are more suited for Olympic weightlifting).

8. Arnold Press

I'll leave the details out of why this exercise is so called because you might guess by yourself who it's named after. ;)

The Arnold Press is performed while sitting on a bench with a backrest. You hold the dumbbells at shoulder height with your palms facing your body (i.e., your palms are facing back, which is a pronated position). This is the starting position.

You then push the dumbbells up while simultaneously rotating your palms outward, finishing in an overhead position with palms facing forward (which is a supinated position).

This way, the load is placed primarily on your front deltoids when in the starting position. As you press the dumbbells up until fully overhead, the placement of the load of the weights will change and get distributed over other parts of your shoulders (such as your side deltoids) as well as your trapezius muscle.

9. Smith Machine Shoulder Press

The Smith machine shoulder press is a variation of the traditional overhead press but performed on a Smith Machine.

The Smith Machine takes any stability aspects out of the exercise, which can be a good thing if you want to do more isolation work or if you have specific issues in your mobility, but in general, I consider it a bad thing because free-weight exercises such as barbell or dumbbell movements help in building stability and balance.

The Smith machine shoulder press targets the deltoids, triceps, and upper chest, similar to the free-weight version.

You can perform the Smith Machine Shoulder Press in the front position (i.e., the barbell is in front of your neck) or in a Behind-the-Neck position. You can also change the inclination of the bench's backrest to target the front deltoids of your shoulders more (by decreasing the inclination).

All in all, I find that doing Smith Machine Shoulder Press gives me shoulder pain since it limits my mobility too much and puts a strange strain on my shoulders when doing this exercise.

If you're a beginner, it's safe to do this exercise, so try it out and see how it feels for you. If you find that it gives you pain in your shoulders or you feel other discomforts, try to change the position of the bench (move it a bit to the front or back, and also slightly vary the inclination) and see if that helps. If the pain still persists, then it's best to do a different vertical push exercise.

10. Seated Dumbbell Press

Seated Dumbbell Presses are usually performed while sitting on a bench with back support.

They're a variation on the Barbell Overhead press, but with dumbbells and while seated.

You start with dumbbells in your hand at shoulder position and your palms facing forward (which is a supinated position). From this position, you push the dumbbells up and over your head. You may or may not lock out your elbows... It's up to you. Not locking out your elbows has the benefit that you keep the weight's pressure on your deltoids (and hence, increase the time under tension for your deltoid muscles), but as muscle fatigue slowly kicks in, you might end up pushing the weights up lower and lower (and not using the maximum range of motion).

Hence, I advise doing a complete lockout of your elbows, which has the extra benefit that you also target your triceps muscles more.

The seated position removes any momentum generated from your lower body. This makes it possible to isolate your shoulder muscles, making this exercise more of a strict press.

That doesn't mean you can cheat your way through the exercise when trying to lift too heavy. A common type of cheating is when people raise their butts off the bench to get their upper body in a more inclined position.

The more inclined the upper body is when doing a vertical push exercise, the less the load is on the shoulders, and the more it will be on your (upper) chest muscle (which is usually stronger than the deltoids, allowing you to push a heavier load). This is a form of cheating when doing shoulder pressing.

11. Push Jerk

The Push Jerk is an explosive exercise used mainly in Olympic weightlifting, but it's also a great exercise for bodybuilding if you want to break through a plateau and lift heavier weights to increase muscle mass in your shoulders.

To do this exercise, stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and hold a barbell at shoulder height with your hands in a front squat grip. There are two ways to hold a barbell for front squats:

1. Holding the barbell with your elbows crossed one over the other (the easy method).
2. Holding the barbell with hands shoulder-width apart and your elbows pointing up (the Olympic style grip).

To perform the Push Jerk, your only option is the second one! And that's because you have to jerk the barbell up over your head, which is impossible to do with the first grip. In both cases, the barbell rests on your front deltoids.

As you have the barbell resting on your front deltoids while holding it with the second grip described above, you have to make a slight dip through your knees and then extend your legs and push (or 'jerk') the barbell up over your head with arms fully extended and elbows locked out!.

As with the Snatch Push Press, the Push Jerk helps you to develop overall upper body strength, explosiveness, power, balance, and coordination.

Conclusion

Whether your goal is building muscle mass or strength in your shoulders, the Barbell Overhead Press is the main compound shoulder exercise you should be doing. But one exercise alone may not be enough, so add in one of the other 10 exercises in the above list to target your shoulders in different ways and work on your stability.

If you want to transition into weightlifting, the Push Jerk and the Snatch Push Press are mandatory exercises in your workout routine.

Whatever exercises you do, always focus on technique and form first...strength and power will then come gradually!

You might also want to check out my article on power exercises to increase your strength if you want to primarily focus on explosiveness and increasing your overall power output and strength.

I hope you enjoyed reading this article. What is your favorite vertical push exercise?