Overhead press: how to do it and how much you should lift

Muscles the overhead press works

The overhead press works the shoulders (deltoids) hardest, the front part most, with the triceps straightening the elbows near the top. The upper back (trapezius) lifts the shoulder blades, and the upper chest helps at the start. Your abs, glutes and lower back hold you upright.

Two studies in trained men found that pressing in front of the head works the front of the shoulder and the chest harder than pressing behind the neck. The behind-the-neck press works the side and rear of the shoulder harder. Another found about 39% more triceps activity with a barbell than with dumbbells.

Those studies measure electrical activity with sensors on the skin (EMG), in 8 to 15 people each. That shows which muscles fire, not how much each one will grow.

How to overhead press

1. Set the bar in a rack at about the height of your upper chest, so you can unrack it with a small bend of the knees.
2. Grip the bar just outside your shoulders, thumbs wrapped around it. Set it low in your palm, over your forearm.
3. Step under the bar so it rests on the front of your shoulders and the top of your chest. Your elbows sit slightly in front of the bar.
4. Stand up, take one or 2 steps back and set your feet about hip width apart.
5. Squeeze your glutes, brace your abs and take a big breath. Your ribs stay down, so your lower back does not arch.
6. Press the bar straight up. Pull your head back a little, so the bar passes your chin and nose without hitting them.
7. Once the bar passes your forehead, move your head forward under it. Finish with straight arms and the bar over your shoulders and the middle of your feet.
8. Lower the bar under control to the front of your shoulders. Breathe out at the top or at the bottom, then take the next breath and brace again.

Keep your knees straight. A dip and drive of the legs turns the lift into a push press, a different exercise.

The press was a weightlifting event until the 1972 Olympics. The International Weightlifting Federation dropped it because judges could not stop lifters from leaning far back. It also named the risk that lean posed to the lower back.

Standing or seated overhead press

Stand if you can. Sit if your lower back complains or you want to press heavier for your shoulders alone. Both are good exercises.

• Standing makes your abs work much harder. In one study, the abs were about 81% less active in a seated dumbbell press than a standing one. The lower back muscles worked about the same either way.
• Seated, the rear of the shoulder was about 25% less active than standing with a barbell, in a study of 15 men.
• In the same study, men pressed about 7% less with standing dumbbells than with a standing barbell, and about 10% less than with seated dumbbells.
• A bench with an upright backrest takes the lean out of the press. That helps if you cannot press standing without arching your lower back.

Where the advice differs

Most overhead press technique is coaching habit, not tested in studies. Where coaches disagree, the right answer depends on your build and your goal.

Common mistakes and how to fix them

Sets, reps and rest for the overhead press

There is no single right number. The table is a starting point built on the research, not a rule any one study tested.

What the studies show:

• Heavy weights build more strength. Muscle grows about as well with light or heavy weights, if the sets go close to failure.
• More weekly sets bring more muscle, up to a point. Strength gains level off sooner.
• Pressing 2 times a week helps you fit in more sets. With the same weekly sets, training a muscle more often does not add size.
• You do not need to reach failure. A missed rep overhead is hard to save, so on heavy sets stop a rep or 2 short.

The bench press also works the front of the shoulder, so your shoulders get some work on bench days too.

For longer answers, read how many sets and reps build muscle and how long to rest between sets.

Warm-up sets before a heavy press

Warm up with the bar, then climb towards your working weight in a few short sets. Type your working set below, and the calculator gives you the warm-up sets and the plates for each side.

The calculator uses a common ramp: the empty bar for 10, then about 40% for 5, 60% for 3 and 80% for 2. Before sets of 5 or fewer reps, or a working weight of 100 kg (225 lb) or more, it adds 90% for 1. Before sets of 8 or more reps, it keeps only the 40% and 80% sets. For a working weight under 40 kg (90 lb), it gives one set at 70% for 3. It rounds each weight down to what your plates can make, and skips a set that would sit within 5 kg (10 lb) of the one before.

If the 20 kg bar is too heavy to start with, pick the 15 kg bar in the calculator, or warm up with dumbbells.

Only one part of that ramp has studies behind it, and those studies used the bench press, not the overhead press. Two of them found that a warm-up set at about 80% of the working weight helped the sets that followed more than lighter warm-ups did. Another found that the kind of warm-up made no difference. No study shows that warm-up sets prevent injury.

How much should you overhead press?

No good overhead press standards table exists. Weightlifting dropped the press in 1972 and powerlifting never had it, so there are no meet results to build one from. The tables online come from what gym app users log, with no check on form.

The 2 largest tables give these one-rep maxes (1RM, the most weight you can lift once) for an intermediate lifter:

For the same man, the 2 tables are 10 kg apart, because each counts a different group of people. Neither checks form, so a logged press may include some lean back or leg drive. Read either table as a rough guide, not a target.

How does it compare with your bench? On Strength Level's own tables, an intermediate man presses about two thirds of what he benches: 0.8 against 1.25 times body weight. An intermediate woman is close to that, at 0.5 against 0.75. That is one site's data at one level, not a rule. Long arms, a short torso or years of benching can move it a lot.

Under 18? These tables are for adults, and they set no target for teenagers. For a young lifter, clean reps and slow, steady progress matter more than any number on them.

Find your overhead press max

You do not need to test a true one-rep max to know it. Type a set you did, and the calculator estimates your max with 7 formulas. Sets of 10 reps or fewer give the closest estimate. For more detail, open the 1RM calculator.

When the overhead press hurts

Pain is a reason to change something, not to push through. Diagnosis and treatment belong to a physiotherapist or a doctor. Up to 36% of the injuries recorded in weight training are at the shoulder, so take shoulder pain seriously.

• Lower back: squeeze your glutes and keep your ribs down, take weight off the bar, or press seated with an upright backrest.
• Shoulder: try a slightly narrower or wider grip, and cut your pressing sets by a third to a half for a few weeks. Coaches often swap in a landmine press, which pushes the bar up at an angle instead of straight overhead.
• Elbow or wrist: set the bar low in your palm over your forearm, and check that your forearms are close to vertical at the bottom.

For lasting pain, read what to do when a lift hurts.

Overhead press variations and alternatives

In Trackist's exercise library, the overhead press sits in one group with 11 other movements that press overhead: the seated dumbbell shoulder press, the machine shoulder press, the Arnold press, the seated barbell overhead press, the push press, the pike push-up, the landmine press, the push jerk, the handstand push-up, the kipping handstand push-up and the wall walk. The app's overhead press page lists them as similar movements. When you swap the press for one session or for the rest of your plan, the picker puts that group first, then other shoulder exercises, starting with those your equipment and joints allow.

How Trackist runs your overhead press

Trackist is an AI personal trainer for the gym. It writes your plan, and the overhead press gets this from the app:

• From your second session of the overhead press, Trackist suggests what to try from the last time you logged it. When every set at your top weight reached the top of the rep range, it adds 2.5 kg (5 lb). Inside the range, it keeps the weight and asks for more reps. There is no suggestion in a deload week.
• When you fall short of the reps, it keeps the weight, takes about 5% off or leaves the call to you, depending on how far short you fell and how hard the sets felt.
• From your second session, it logs a personal record when you beat your heaviest weight, your most reps at a weight or your best estimated max.
• The exercise page shows 4 form cues, the muscles worked and the joints the press loads: shoulder, elbow and lower back. From your second session it adds a chart of your estimated one-rep max.
• When your shoulder hurts on the overhead press, you report it, rate it from 1 to 5, and Trackist swaps the press for an exercise that spares the joint, usually one that trains the same muscle. It reads the report as pain overhead, so later plans leave out overhead presses and shoulder raises, while your bench press and rows stay.