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Kettlebell Are presses bad for posture?

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Opiaswing

Opiaswing

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I have recently taken to pressing with KBs, and can nearly press the 40kg, however am increasingly finding that the more I press, the worse my shoulder feel.

I have always had rounded shoulders and found that hangs and rear delt work helped, but it seemed the presses just override all the postural work I do and my shoulders inevitably end up tighter and rolled forward. It also doesn’t help with scapula winging.

Any advice? Would I be better off doing jerks? Or lighter bottom up press?
 
I've had the opposite experience with the press, especially the barbell overhead press.

You could always clean before each press - the clean (especially doubles) is a fantastic and under-rated upper back pull exercise.
 
@Opiaswing
It's good you're listening to your body in this situation since harming your shoulders while trying to improve them is a bad ROI. The Turkish Get Up is a powerful way of working on the shoulders and a lot of other body parts as well. It may be worth some of your time while you possibly ease off of the press.
 
Opiaswing said:
I have recently taken to pressing with KBs, and can nearly press the 40kg, however am increasingly finding that the more I press, the worse my shoulder feel.

I have always had rounded shoulders and found that hangs and rear delt work helped, but it seemed the presses just override all the postural work I do and my shoulders inevitably end up tighter and rolled forward. It also doesn’t help with scapula winging.

Any advice? Would I be better off doing jerks? Or lighter bottom up press?
Click to expand...


I'd go with lateral movements and see how those work with your existing posture.
 
Opiaswing said:
I have recently taken to pressing with KBs, and can nearly press the 40kg, however am increasingly finding that the more I press, the worse my shoulder feel.

Any advice? Would I be better off doing jerks? Or lighter bottom up press?
Click to expand...

A good overhead lockout is a fantastic exercise for the shoulder when performed properly. I'd be interested in seeing your technique in the press.

And while other exercises are fine, military press technique work with lighter bells may be the fastest route to success.
 
I've personally noticed that I recover more slowly from pressing than from most other lifts - elbows and shoulders get sore easily. I know I have generally poor overhead mobility, so I interpret this as weakness in the supporting musculature. I can't do anything even close to the volume of the ROP with an 8RM bell, I just feel beat up. Something I'm working on... but if I keep volume under control, I feel good.

So, maybe the posture issue is just your shoulders telling you that they can't cope with that volume.
 
I found doing arm bars daily helped me alot in correcting my shoulders. They still tend to round, but pressing, or any kind of overhead work is no problem.

I found rear delt work to be utterly useless. And of course hanging exercise to decompress helped me alot too.
 
Opiaswing said:
Any advice? Would I be better off doing jerks? Or lighter bottom up press?
Click to expand...

I actually like your own ideas the best -- jerks with the 40kg instead of presses, and bottom-up presses with something lighter.

Bottom-up press is good for finding the best press groove. Also it's usually taught to watch the bell with a bottom-up press (as opposed to a regular press -- gaze straight ahead), which may put your shoulder in a little more opened up position.

I've been doing barbell C&J lately and was pleased to find yesterday that my barbell military press was still strong despite doing very little strict presses in the past month or two.

But also, @WhatWouldHulkDo may be onto something -- Often it's not the movement or technique, it's the programming that's the culprit.

And to answer the thread title, no, presses aren't bad for posture. Personally I don't think they do as much good for posture as bench press (with tight arch) or rows, but that's my own experience.
 
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I've found the bent press to be the best press for posture and even better than the TGU. When I went from S&S to learning the bent press my shoulders became naturally further back and my chest more proud. After several cycles of RSAS (IPM) I can attest that multiple reps of bent press are even better !
 
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I think I had a similar problem. It stemmed from pressing "in front of me" instead of "behind me". A lot changed, when I implemented two things:
- started to use a cue to press the bell behind my ear.
- read this article: How to Avoid Injury and Maximize Strength by Correcting Rib Flare | StrongFirst
I found that rib flare may not only be damaging for the spine, but also you are more inclined to put your front dealt in an unfavorable position.
 
Hi @Opiaswing!

As an office dweller with scoliosis I highly recommend extra upper back work. Especially rowing.

TGUs helped me a lot. And I never experienced your problems when I transitioned to RoP after hitting the Simple standard. But in my experience overhead pressing still favors front delt and is somewhat lacking when it comes to the back of your shoulder girdle and your upper back. I didn't stick to RoP very long after hitting the Simple standard but I made sure to do an upper body pull (in my case the one arm row) for every C&P and felt that it trained my whole upper body in a very balanced way.

Granted, I only worked through it with the 24kg KB. But I later worked my way close to a BW barbell press and still felt like I needed to balance pressing with upper back work.

Just my 2 cents.

One arm rows are easy to do and felt very effective to me.
 
I have generally had poor posture.
My experience is that presses don't have much effect on this.
For the past few months I have been doing S&S (so TGUs) as will as some Flexible Steel pullovers and arm bars and my posture has noticeably improved.
 
Where are you located?
You may need a movement screen and to address things like neck health/mobility, t-spine mobility, scapular control etc....
Putting a bigger engine in a car (strengthening your press) with a frame that is "out of alignment" (needs t-spine mobility for example) will still go through the tires (not be optimal for the shoulders).
 
Since I started A+A Snatching my posture and shoulder mobility has improved. So perhaps it was worth trying.
 
I've experienced this. I think you're pressing too heavy. Instead of letting the kettlebell pull your arm back into that natural fully extended position, you are forcing it forward. When your bell is too heavy that full extension feels like it wants to rip your shoulder out of socket. You'll naturally fight against this by keeping the bell too far forward. I'd suggest dropping bell sizes to whatever your snatch weight bell is, make sure you get into full extension, and make up the lack of weight with increased volume.

Try this for a few weeks. My guess is that your shoulder will loosen and you'll feel great.
 
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