I love pressing.
The Barbell Thinks You're a Pussy
By Mark Rippetoe
The overhead press may be the most obvious thing to do with a barbell. The bar is lying there on the floor, looking at you as if to say, "Come on, press me over your head. It's the obvious thing to do. Can you? Are you strong enough?"
And you say, "But I'd rather press you after I lie down on the bench over there. That's just as cool, right? It makes my pecs bigger too!" So the bar says, "Well, if you have to, put me in the rack and then press me overhead from there. That's still a man's press."
But you say, "Aw c'mon, bar. Just load up in the bench and let me press you that way. I can do more weight on the bench, and I can work my chest."
Finally, the bar says, "Okay, fine, have it your way, pussy."
Because this is really the deal: the bench press lets you handle heavier weights, and there's a place for that. The bench is a legit lift. And "chesticles" are handy at the beach, I get that.
But if the real reason you don't want to press is the fact that you don't want to confront a hole – likely a gaping-ass hole – in your strength, then the bar is right: you're a pussy.
My point in all this bitching is to impress upon you the fact that your strength is not complete until you MAKE IT COMPLETE.
Take the opportunity this particular knock has presented, and listen to me: Get your press up. Your bar is telling you the same thing. – Mark Rippetoe
I love pressing.
I think I may just post this on my Facebook right meow
Where'd you see this?
I forgot how much I enjoyed pressing until I started doing it again last week. Going to try and press BW (~190) before years end.
there's nothing sexier than an overhead press.
Pressing is fun, and it has great application to the overhead sports (strongman/weightlifting). Lately my shoulder is not allowing me to press. It more has to do with the grip width than the actual movement itself. Since I press with a pretty close grip, it is aggravating it big time. The nice thing is that the better looking cousin of the press (the bench press) can help you increase your press. If you add 90lbs to your bench, your press is going to go up. It might take 8-12 weeks to reprogram a peaking cycle for it, but you will be stronger.
The Squat: Easier Doesn't Work
By Mark Rippetoe
Squatting high is easier, but easier doesn't work.
You actually know this already, even if you keep the secret buried down below your brain stem. Easier has never worked, and you figured this out in about the fifth grade, provided you weren't in some remedial program mandated by your state.
When you memorized all your multiplication tables, arithmetic was a lot easier, wasn't it? When you diagrammed all your sentences, the next semester's writing assignments were easier, right? When you actually did all your homework, the test was easier. That type of easier does work.
Squats below parallel are your homework. The result of doing them is that you get stronger on all the other exercises, even the pressing movements, because squats make your whole body stronger – if you do them correctly.
I know it's harder that way, and one of the ways you know it's wrong to do them high is that everybody else does them high. When was the last time that thing everybody else was doing turned out to be the right thing to do?
Deep squats done with a weight that's a little heavier each time you train affect your body in a way that no other exercise can. And believe me when I say that "other methods" have been tried. They just don't work. And it's not that they don't work as well, they don't work at all.
You can quarter-squat or half-squat as much weight as you can load on the bar and growth will not occur at the same rate it does when you finally stop being a pussy and get below parallel with every rep, with a constantly increasing load on your back.
And I'm not sure why squats do that.
We know that the accumulating effects of the increasing load cause the accumulation of adaptations to those heavier loads. We speculate that loading the whole body causes a systemic hormonal response, and that deadlifts don't because of the shorter range of motion and the lack of a stretch reflex at the hardest mechanical position.
But the truth is we don't know exactly why it's the squat and only the squat that produces this effect, and we're not likely to find out anytime soon because the exercise "science" community thinks you can do a squat study with a Smith machine. Really. Look it up.
I – however benighted I may be concerning peer-review, academic rigor, and double-blinding – know what works and what doesn't. The way I know that deep squats work this way and that nothing else does is because I've been doing this for 35 years.
I'm actually not a dull person, and I've seen firsthand the differences in attempting to gain weight and muscle with and without deep squats. - Rip
These all come from Rip's articles over at T-Nation. The full list can be found here:
http://www.t-nation.com/ALSAuthor.do...petoe&pageNo=1
The pressing article: http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_...r_press_up&cr=
The squatting article: http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_...oesnt_work&cr=