Elbows in the press - continuation

[Daniel's Jack]

Dear all,

since Rip is out of town and referred to the staff board, I am continuing my thread from Rip's Q&A here.

My question is about the position of the hips and the elbows when the bar drive goes up.

Rip says "the hips are back where they started".

In SS:BBT3, Figure 3-26 the lifter has extended hips in the third picture where the bar just passes his forehead. And in 8:18 of Platform: Learning to Press 2.0 you say "as he stretches forward the bar comes off the chest". So when the bar drives up, the hips are still forward.

Sorry, I am lost here. Either I have a language problem and I am misunderstanding something or this contradicts what I learned about the press.

Do we not move the torso backwards and the hips forwards to make room for the bar to drive straight up and clear the hips? If the hips are pulled back and the torso is upright when the press movement starts, how do we press in a straight line? Figure 3-18 in the book also shows hips in the front when the bar clears the forehead. Nowhere it says "extend the hips, pull them back, start the press".

Thanks for all your help, it's highly appreciated.

Daniel

[Steve Hill]

First, we're talking about 3-4" of hip travel. The elbow position changes vertically, because as the body pushes forward, the formerly straight-line body becomes an arch. Since the weight MUST stay over the midfoot, this means the shoulders (and thus the elbows) get closer to the feet. The rebound and some of the return off the front provides impetus to the bar in the vertical direction. Humeral angle change relative to the body is small (to address a question you raised in Rip's thread).

Do we not move the torso backwards and the hips forwards to make room for the bar to drive straight up and clear the hips?

No, we do not. We push the hips forward to change the angle of the spine at the top so the head out of the way. Below the shoulders, the torso should be going forward (greatly in the hip region, and less and less as you get closer to the shoulders).

If the hips are pulled back and the torso is upright when the press movement starts, how do we press in a straight line? Figure 3-18 in the book also shows hips in the front when the bar clears the forehead. Nowhere it says "extend the hips, pull them back, start the press".

The book is correct. As the bar passes the top of the forehead, the hips are almost back to their normal position.

If you want to see how slight the difference in the location of the hip is, watch these: