Body Position and Loading effects in the Overhead Press

Here at 3Fu3l, we’re not big fans of seated exercise for most athletes. That’s because with few exceptions, most sports are played standing. Not all, admittedly…

Although the logic for prefering standing exercise to seated appears sound for most athletes, as we like to ask, “it’s logical, but is it physiological?”

Scientists compared  4 shoulder press exercises: seated military press, standing military press, seated dumbbell press, and standing dumbbell press. This study demonstrated that the shoulder muscle showed the highest activation in the standing dumbell press.

Standing dumbbell work followed by standing barbell work also recruited the most activity from the biceps and triceps muscles, although those movements didn’t allow for the higher levels of loading in the 1RM as their seated counterparts:

Both standing variations of the shoulder press increased stability requirements when compared with their seated counterparts. Seated work allowed for much greater loads, however, and we would speculate that there is a good deal of carryover between such similar movements – so it might not be a bad idea to include some heavy seated work in your training.