overhead

So many kettlebell exercises go overhead.

Some move quickly like the Snatch (top left picture) and Jerk. Some move slowly like the Press (top right picture) and Bent Press. And some are simply just held overhead like the Turkish Get Up and Windmill but every single one of them should look identical in the lockout position.

When the kettlebell is overhead your body should have tension running through it from top to bottom, reaching the top of your movement is not a moment to relax. Keeping your lats activated, your belly and glutes tight, the arm sucked into the shoulder, wrist straight ensures safety and strength.

Breaking down the Overhead Lockout:

The Wrist: When the wrist is in the correct position the muscle in your forearm remains active. Maintaining a straight wrist with knuckles facing the sky can be a challenge for some, especially when using a lighter kettlebell that sits higher on the wrist and presses on bone. If the pressure on the wrist is too much when you are starting out grab some sweatbands and cover the wrist for protection (not for continual use to cushion a kettlebell banging onto your wrist, that is a different issue altogether).

Keeping the wrist straight is essential in reducing injury, the “Broken Wrist” position will eventually lead to exactly that…

I asked fellow RKC and Physiotherapist Craig Soley for a breakdown of the dangers of incorrect wrist position, the following is his response –

“One of the most common mistakes in KB pressing activities is wrist position. So we can be clear, wrist (neutral) extension is described such that if I drew a line from your knuckles along the back of your hand and down your wrist is would be a perfectly straight line. If the wrist is flexed (a less common mistake) the knuckles would be in front of the wrist and forearm. If the wrist is extended then the knuckles would be located behind the bones of the wrist and forearm. Holding the KB in wrist neutral, the load is carried through the joint and held by muscular effort – this is good. In wrist extension, the load is carried on the joint, less muscle effort and the weight is resting upon the bony structures – over time this is bad and it is bad practice.

Why? Think collapsed arches and flat feet, hyperextended knees and hyperlorditic lumbar spines as other examples of resting on your joints. If you continually rest on your joints they will eventually wear out. Also, if you are training, train! Use your muscles to do the work and take the load off your joints! Keeping your wrist neutral trains for function and longevity.”

The Elbow: The elbow, as with the wrist, should maintain a straight alignment. The extended arm should run parallel to your head with your bicep inline with your ear. If you are hypermobile through the joint you will need to be more mindful of your movements as they are more likely to sustain injury due to the unstable nature of the joint.

Shoulder/Ear Poisoning: Over and over throughout all of my kettlebell learning I’ve heard the phrase “Your ears are poison to your shoulders”, simply meaning that if you’re overhead and the shoulder is close your ear then you’ve lost all stability and strength from the shoulder girdle being in a shrugged up position. Keep the arm securely in the socket and activate your lats for upper torso strength.

Core/Glutes: If you are planning to conquer The Iron Maiden Challenge (or for the fellas The Beast Tamer Challenge) you know that a good heavy Press comes from strong glutes and having your core locked tight. It is the solid base that stops you from leaking power and maintains control. Finish your lift strong by keeping them all engaged – meaning no disengaging in the middle.

Get moving before going overhead: Always warm up before any workout with your aim to target the muscles that are going to be used. PFE warm-up, Halos with Kettlebell, rotating all joints through their full range of movement.

Can’t Maintain Lockout? Thoracic Spine Extension Mobility plays a big part in maintaining posture in the overhead lockout. If you are lacking in thoracic mobility work on it with some of the following stretches/exercises –

Foam Roller on the thoracic spine
Armbar or Crooked Armbar
Thoracic Bridging

Always seek out professional help if you are suffering pain in any overhead position.

***

Tabitha Dearle, RKCII based in Perth, Australia, and is Co-owner of Perth Kettlebell School of Strength. She spent the first decade of her working life managing fast food restaurants before making a life-changing decision to become a Personal Trainer. Since then she’s been helping many, from athletes to seniors to children, change their lifestyles to become fitter, healthier and more mobile mostly through using Kettlebells. You can follow her blog at http://tabidrkc.wordpress.com/

I have to be honest, I have somewhat of a love affair with pressing weight overhead. In my early years of lifting I loved to bench press. I was pretty good at the bench press in even in high school, but it wasn’t till much later than I would find my passion for the overhead press. Part of my delay in developing my relationship with the overhead press was the fact I came into the fitness industry in the late 90’s where pressing overhead was suppose to be TERRIBLE for your shoulders. The philosophy slowly changed where it was alright to press overhead, but as long as you didn’t go below 90 degrees in the motion. Now we have come full circle where everyone wants to press everything overhead!

My own personal attachment to the overhead press began when I started to Olympic lift. Although I was quite good with the bench press, I felt darn weak in putting any weight overhead. I learned quickly that the overhead press wasn’t just a fancy name for the shoulder press, but really requires integration of the entire body. My weakness didn’t stem from a problematic upper body, but I didn’t understand how to properly utilize my body as a singular unit—really the basis of what functional training is suppose to teach us.

The fact that overhead pressing was one of the three classic ways old time strongmen measured strength (lifting from the ground and carrying weight were the other two), I felt like I was gaining a better form of strength. Not only focusing on the Olympic lifts, I began to compete in Strongman where lifting all sorts of different implements overhead required even more awareness on how the whole body is responsible for developing strength, not just a single muscle or group of muscles.

I recall having a colleague of mine who had an extensive background in Olympic lifting try to press a steel log overhead, he was greatly humbled by the great differences in just changing the implement. For some time I focused my efforts in raising my overhead press by changing the standard training variables such as load, speed, volume, and implements. Then my whole philosophy changed quite quickly.

At one point I was able to press a 40 kg kettlebell for 15 repetitions, not too shabby. However, about two years ago I noticed I could no longer even come close to pressing this weight even for 1 repetition. I was down to struggling to press a 24 kg kettlebell. Doctors found that my spinal cord was being heavily compressed by a disc in my neck. Surgery was necessary, but I was left to wondering if I would ever be able to train in the manner that was so important to me (yes, standard lifters mentality).

Right after my spinal fusion I was told that I couldn’t lift more than 20 pounds for a period of a few weeks. This would be followed by no more than 40 pounds for additional time. How does someone who is so use to lifting heavy come to terms with this limitation? I began to rethink how to train and how to get strong.

Not being able to focus on weight really threw me for a loop. How do you stress the body if you can’t just keep adding weight? The answer was in how we train the body during body weight drills. Sure, weight vests and other implements are used to stress the body, but more commonly, changing leverage in the body is used to increase the intensity of body weight training. How come we don’t do this in weight training?

That is why I started to form a series of kettlebell pressing progressions based around changing our body position that alters leverage of the weight. A lot of people actually have a leaky press. What’s a “leaky press”? They rotate and laterally bend when they press overhead. While some may argue that this is an old school method, it does reduce the carryover to other forms of overhead pressing because you can’t lean when you use most other implements in pressing overhead.

In my mind, the overhead press is just as much a great trunk stability exercise as it is an upper body exercise. The overhead press has a lot of similarities to the push-up, by learning to resist the pull of the weight to one side or the other, we actually build integrity and strength through the hips and trunk (similar to altering body position during a push-up). We can then stress the body in a two different ways with leverage and focus on trunk stability.

-Change Body Position

-Alter Pressing Motion

-Or Both!

The attached video series breaks down these ideas so you can easily integrate the right progression for your goals. You will quickly find which variation is the toughest for you and you might have to make this version your priority! Understanding these principles allows you to press almost every training session and self periodizes your training.

Try a cycle like this one:

Monday: Heavy

Military Press 5 sets of 3

Wednesday: Medium

Kneeling Double Press 3 sets of 5

Friday: Light

Half Kneeling Alternating Press 3 sets of 6 (per side)

***

Josh Henkin, Senior RKC, CSCS has been a RKC instructor since 2003 and has implemented kettlebell programs for major Division I programs, SWAT teams, and many different general fitness programs. Josh is also the creator of the DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training system where he is a highly sought after presenter worldwide. He can be reached at info@ultimatesandbagtraining.com or http://DVRTFitness.com

overhead

Importance of the Overhead Lockout

Fixing the Press