Journey towards the 300lb OHP club.

[mbag012]

So lately ive been reading alot of articles on the overhead press everywhere. it seems to be the new 'in' thing and so i tried it out and fell in love with it. the only lift that makes me feel more alive under the bar is the back squat and not by much either.

i started OHPing in december where i could only lift a pathetic 90lbs. my shoulders are really small muscularly. that means that my shoulders look comparatively shit to my upper body. since then my 1rm has improved to 135. i attempted a 140lb max today but by then i had done around an hour of workouts and i had no muscular strength to even break past the starting strength barrier.

i have never seen a lift that is slower to improve than this one. i wanted to lift 300lb in the next 5 years but honestly im starting to think that its gonna be a good 10 years before i get there. the growth actually came in a spurt. i was doing alot of olympic lifts for a while and my OHP just magically grew from 90 to 135 for some reason. i find that i can OHP more when i clean the weight instead of pulling it out from a rack

i want to ask if the OHP, the strict ones with a bit of layback(not excessive), can be substitued for the bench press and what i should do on the lower body day to compliment my OHP. does anyone have any technique pointers they can give to me?

 

[Cool2Chris]

Maybe you could try a 5/3/1 style program to focus on the slow bit steady long term gains since it takes so long to make gains in this lift.

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[Buildingup24]

5/3/1 is your answer. Also, 300lb OHP is HUGE so just keep in mind that it'll take YEARS to achieve.

 

[training700]

Its a tough lift. Just continued work on it and other shoulder exercises especially overhead ones obviously. At my best I OHP'd 335 but was benching 495. If that what you want then focus more of your energy on that then bench. A strong back helps with the OHP. A lot of times I can feel my lats working a lot as well when performing it. Doing push presses as well can help bring it up as well. Don't get too wild with them as a beginner.

 

[mbag012]

i dont really understand the 531 program.
week 1 5 sets of 5 reps
week 2 3 x 3
week 3 work up to 1rm
week 4 deload.
is this it?

i dont like it how it has a deload week and although ive never tried it, im skeptical about how you only squat and bench once a week and still make progress. from my experience the frequency at which you perform the lift directly influences the rate at which you get stronger at that lift. does anyone have any success stories with this?

 

[Buildingup24]

Buy the book. It's best 20 bucks you'll spend on your training