Barbell Bench to OH carryover

[Hardartery]

This makes me curious: when people say that bench translates to overhead press, how strict are they being with the overhead press? I'm not trying to imply that one way is "best," just that some folks do perform their OVHP with more pronounced backwards "lean," which would involve more upper chest, correct? I do realize that to keep the center mass of the bar over your base of support, you have to lean at least a little (also to not hit your chin).

I guess I wonder if some people are comparing apples to oranges here? That is, those that see a lot of transfer, do you allow your ribs to flare up to press more with the upper pecs + delts, or do you keep the ribs down tight? Conversely, those that do not see as much transfer, are you being very strict with the posture?

An interesting test may be a bench to Z-press transfer. There's not as much leeway to lean back on those.

Thoughts?

The form with a Log is radically different than with and Axle or bar. Almost no one can rack a Log and not be touching the top of the pecs/anterior delts or without downward rotation of the scapula and a lean back. This results in more effective force transfer from the hip drive through the shoulders, some guys cannot rack a bar or Axle against the delts because of flexibility issues. Some guys are just too big to permit that rack position as well. The main difference is greater pec and anterior delt involvement in the Log Lift, and also greater stabilisation requirements from the upper back. Conversely, with a bar or Axle, the upper back is more important on the clean portion of the lift and most guys do not get enough back lean to drive significant pec involvement. The form is very, very different than O-lifting or normal gym strict pressing. It's also never a strict press in competition. Even more different is the Viking Press, which prohibits a double knee bend (the re-bend that you use in an O-lift style Jerk). Once you push the legs have to be essentially straight until lockout. That definitely colours training practices if you are going to encounter Viking Press during the comp season.

 

[North Coast Miller]

For me, I can and have improved OHP without even training it just by increasing my horizontal push and horizontal pull. By itself there will be some good carry-over but far more if your pulling muscles get stronger too.

I have noticed very little carryover from OHP to horizontal push or pull, but some folks (Chris Thib comes to mind) swear by it.

 

[MikeTheBear]

The other events where the bench press could be helpful is Atlas stones, a carry event where the implement is held in the front, or a loading event. Large Atlas stones require the athlete to squeeze their arms together in order to lift the thing. This requires strength in the chest muscles, especially for shorter competitors. Most amateurs don't have regular access to strongman implements and they do exercises to strengthen the muscles used for the events. Exercises that build the muscles for loading events include the bench press (chest), dumbbell flies (works the chest in the "squeezing" motion), and front squat (to get used to holding a heavy load in front). Obviously the deadlift belongs here as well but I don't know of a strongman competitor who doesn't train the deadlift.

 

[minaam]

Last February, I replaced my barbell OHP with the bench press and saw some good carryover. I finally switched back to the OHP this week and didn't see any carryover.

That being said, I find the barbell OHP a very technique-dependent lift. Within 2-3 weeks of training it consistenly, I might have a better gauge on how my BP strength carries over.

As for the KB single-arm OHP, I've seen some great carryover from the bench. After training the bench exclusively for a few months, I saw my KB press go up ~4kg or so.

 

[Simply strong]

What if I throw another factor in. The incline, close grip bench press would carryover to the overhead press presumably more than a flat bench. So if you opened it up to bench and it’s variations you might see better results in terms of carry over to other lifts than just training OHP

 

[Simply strong]

Strongman competitors do NOT train a lot of Bench Press.

Something I didn’t know. Tbf I don’t really know anything about strongman. I was just going by popular strongman competitors YouTube channels. I see eddy hall, Brian shaw, Luke Richardson, nick best, Thor, Robert oberst and the stoltman brothers posting bench sessions very frequently. Presumably they post the majority of their bench sessions giving a false impression of what they would normally train ??‍

 

[ANoorda]

Here’s my experience.
When I was first starting out lifting weights, I could overhead press the bar 7 times if I leaned as if I was doing the limbo.
After I tried that, I only benched for two years. I brought my bench up 80lbs (newbie gains). Then, when I came back to the overhead press, I could do 95lbs for 3 solid reps and the bar for like 20 reps

 

[pet']

Hello,

It may be only me, but I've noticed that HSPU have drastically improved my OAP, which I volontarily neglected a little, as an experiment. Prior to extensively using the HSPU, I did OAP. HSPU were extremely hard.

At least for my body, it seems that vertical push transfer better to horizontal push than the other way around. However, I paired it with core training. A program like RoP increased my OAP as well. Back then, I had enough presses from kb training…

Technique is also paramount. Dropping a move for a while, doing another one which is some sort of variation, then getting back to the former may give the body some sort of rest. It may just need the time to drill the technique again (even with light weight) to reach PR.

Kind regards,

Pet'