Pearl for Practice: Overhead Work with the Barbell

 


I don't ever remember being intimidated by overhead lifting. I was lucky to get expert instruction early in my career. But there are many sport and medical professionals who are unsure of the safety of lifting overhead. Some are adamantly against it.

Bilateral work with a bar, overhead and behind the head, is advanced and demands full ROM. It doesn't require extra ROM, but it does require normal, full ROM.

Athletes and non-athletes who do not have normal, full shoulder ROM clearly need to do more remedial, single-arm overhead work. Everyone needs to earn the right to do advanced movements. Many just need to take some time to find the motion they actually have; if you haven't put your hands over your head very often, you probably don't know what you are capable of doing.

But let me be clear: I've worked with many people who never ever need to use a barbell. I did what was appropriate and necessary for their needs, not my ego or somebody else's idea of what "strength & conditioning" is.

That said, there are many who are fully capable of and interested in light and moderate overhead barbell work. And when someone is rehabbing an elbow or shoulder, these movements can be a great asset in the process of restoring athletic normal. I have successfully done this type of work with high school aged swimmers, hockey players, volleyball players, basketball players, alpine ski racers and aerials skiers. 

For my aerials skiers, volleyball players and basketball athletes, push presses (in front, behind the neck and with a hex bar) were staples of training -- along with high incline bench and other overhead pressing work -- dumbbells probably making up 2/3 of the work. From an athletic development standpoint, I prefer to replace a flat bench press with a push press. It's more athletic and supports overall upper quarter health. This type of very light bar work is the foundation of advanced strength and power work with a barbell.

It is essential to have a range of bars and plates. I have 5k g, 10 kg, 15 kg and 20 kg bars and then 2.5, 3.75 and 5 kg training plates, along with a number of change plates from 0.5 kg - 5 kg.  For many people, an empty 45 lb / 20 kg bar will be too heavy. 

A lack of light equipment in weight rooms makes this type of work inaccessible to many athletes; it also makes sport coaches and medical professionals fearful and biased against it. A lack of professionalism and maturity by the people in charge of this equipment tends to further complicate things.

In the video above, I'm using a 15 kg and 2.5 kg plates for a total of 20 kg. This final clip is a 6' 10 high school basketball athlete using the same 15 kg bar. He is 6' 10 and 18 years old; I'm 5' 8" and 51 here. The focus here is on smooth movement, coordinated rotation about the wrist, elbow and shoulder and length overhead. This is not about absolute strength or power; it is about creating a more capable, informed mover and a more robust upper quarter.

I encourage anyone working in athletic development and return to sport rehab to explore these movements. Add to your movement vocabulary and toolbox. You and your athletes might even find some of this work enjoyable. It can have a meditative quality to it when done with quiet intent -- and there just seems to be something viscerally rewarding about putting an object overhead with both hands.

 


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