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by Diego Socolinsky
A common problem with the press is confusing hips-forward with leaning back. Both of them will get the head of of the way and initiate a rebound, but leaning back will make the bar rebound forward of the shoulder, rather than up and backward as desired.
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Very good piece right there
Out of curiosity, how are lifters in the Olympic Press able to overcome such a long moment arm from a very large layback?
My attempted answer:
They've got strong-as-shit abs and glutes.
They control the amount of layback. This is the point of the article.
The photos below have a large layback to my eye (granted I've never trained the Olympic Press, so my eye is biased). After I came upon S.S. in 2009, I bought the 2nd edition of "Starting Strength." I took the seminar and built my Press up to 230 lb (bodyweight at that time 215 lb) using the Press 1.5, but I can't imagine ever achieving that number or higher with the Olympic Press. Again I've never trained it so that would explain why.
But in looking at the photo (taking from a Marty's article on the Olympic Press), I wonder if I'd ever be able to overcome the forces form the moment arm from laybacks like these.
Am I largely correct in my assumption that stronger abs and glutes would be the primary muscle groups that would help a lifter overcome this kind of layback (I know this is quite off topic from our model)?
Attachment 6856
Note the position of the hips. It's called a "layback" but you can see that it is balanced by the hips moving forward.
Yes, I got that. My question is of a separate issue.
I am wondering about how the moment at the shoulder is able to be overcome.
How is it that the torso is able to "come through" and overcome such a high amount of leverage with heavy-ass-weights?
Because those things aren't left out of the getting-strong process - not just with the press, but with the much higher forces in the other lifts - so they're nice and big and strong vs the upper limb muscles anyway.
Scott,Quote:
Originally Posted by Scott Beall
Good question. If you look at the pictures carefully, you will notice that the barbell is vertically stacked right over the shoulder joint. Therefore, the moment arm between barbell and shoulder on the sagittal plane is negligible. By moving the hips forward, we introduce a moment arm between hip and barbell, which can be significant. However, the muscles that flex the hip (psoas, rectus femoris, abs, etc) are stronger than those that flex the shoulder, so they can overcome this moment arm. The glutes act by anchoring the pelvis posteriorly, so that the hip flexors that attach to the anterior aspect of the hip are lengthened, and can generate more force. The whole point of the layback (which really should be called "leanforward") in the olympic press is to introduce a larger moment arm around a stronger part of the body, in order to reduce the range of motion of a weaker part. Hope this helps.
