How to treat (seated) press in low ceiling quarantine gym

Howdy all,

I was lucky enough to get to take home a barbell, lots of weights and a bench from my community centre gym, and got the last rack from a local manufacturer that should come today or tomorrow.

Unfortunately the only place for me to set up the gym is in my low ceiling basement. That means no standing press. I understand that the seated press is not a replacement, but for now it's the best I got unless someone can suggest a low-clearance alternative.

Do I treat it as an accessory exercise and move it to accessory day (dips, chin ups, standing curls) and up my bench press training frequency, or do I use it as a replacement for the standing press in my regular AB schedule and keep the same bench press frequency?

- Yannai
41yr male, 230lb, 6'1"
Squat 340 worksets
BP 252 worksets
P 165 worksets
DL 390 workset

Powerlifting legend Hugh Cassidy apparently had this issue in his home basement gym. According to Marty Gallagher, they did seated presses. Their programming was different, prioritizing the Bench, Squat, Deadlift twice weekly, and whatever gas was left was then spent on other lifts. I wouldn’t put too much thought into this, adapt to your circumstances and get at it.

Seated presses work real good and teach you how to stabilize your back on the press. You will find yourself much tighter and under control when you go back to standing.

I had this problem. However, once I decided to take the bar up out of the basement, press, and bring it back down after the problem was no longer there. It seems like a huge pain in the butt whilst you do it, but in the grand scheme of things doesn't take too long at all. Especially if you can spare some weights to stow seperate. It's not ideal, and I have since bought a second cheap 4ft bar specifically for pressing, but well doable.

Every time this issue comes up I think of this thread- Overhead Pressing and Low Ceilings

Dude actually dug a pit in his basement floor to make enough clearance for pressing. Pretty ingenious.

If you train it you can get to a pretty high percentage of your press. I'd say it's a suitable exercise for shoulder strength, meaning that you can still build appreciable amounts of muscle mass with it, but of course it's not a perfect replacement. I've subbed it for lifters who have an extraneous layback to the point where they had pain and it worked out just fine. Layback cleaned up as well

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Robert Santana

Seated presses work real good and teach you how to stabilize your back on the press. You will find yourself much tighter and under control when you go back to standing.

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I have actually noticed this myself training it for a few weeks. I started off kinda wobbly but now I'm steady. Also think I corrected a shoulder positioning error I was making. Can't wait til gyms open back up to go back to doing heavy standing presses and see if I can apply it to the big boy version of the lift.

The added stability will probably result in PRs when you stand again. It may also help set your back tighter on the squat too if you've been neglecting that. Seated presses, push presses, and front squats are my go-tos for intermediates that struggle with thoracic extension.