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Improve Your Overhead Strength With The Scrape The Rack Press – Muscle & Fitness

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Improve Your Overhead Strength With The Scrape The Rack Press – Muscle & Fitness

The barbell overhead press is a true test of strength because nobody yells, “It’s all you, bro.” as they yank the bar from your chest. With the overhead press, you can lift it, or you can’t. Although the barbell overhead press is not the only way to improve overhead strength, it’s the one that allows you to lift the most weight, so it’s the king of the overhead jungle. For those seeking to improve their overhead press, you’re in expert hands. Tasha “Iron Wolf” Whelan, a world champion powerlifter and strongwoman athlete with over two decades of coaching experience, has the perfect exercise for you: the scrape the rack press, which can increase your upper body strength and muscle.

Here, Whelan explains what it is and how it is an overhead strength game-changer.

Why the Barbell Overhead Press Is An Effective Exercise

Barbell overhead presses are an essential exercise for several reasons. It promotes upper body strength by strengthening the shoulders, upper chest, triceps, and upper back while building a rock-solid core. This exercise mimics real-world pushing movements and reaching abilities, improving functional strength and performance. It also offers postural benefits by strengthening the shoulder and upper back muscles, reducing the risk of upper body injuries.

A barbell provides more stability because both hands are fixed on it. This greater stability makes it easier to go heavier than dumbbells,” explains Whelan.

What is the Scrape The Rack Press Exercise?

This exercise involves pressing a barbell overhead while keeping the bar in close contact with the rack’s uprights throughout the movement. By “scraping” the bar against the rack, you maintain a controlled and stable bar path, which improves stability and muscle engagement in the shoulders, triceps, and upper back.

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How To Do The Scrape The Rack Press

Whelan gives you the lowdown on performing this exercise with good form.

  1. Position the bar at shoulder height or slightly above in a power rack. Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and grip the bar slightly wider than shoulder width. Too wide, and the shoulders could get cranky. If your grip is too narrow, and the range of motion extends, increasing triceps demand.
  2. With the barbell resting on the top of the “J hook,” elbows slightly in front of the bar, and wrists straight, brace your core.
  3. Press while keeping it in complete contact with the rack, “scraping” it as you extend your arms until lockout. Ensure your head moves slightly forward so the bar is directly overhead. Avoid flaring your elbows out or losing contact with the rack. Maintain a neutral spine; shoulders, elbows, and wrists should align when arms are locked out.
  4. Lower the bar back to the starting position on the top of the “J hook,” keeping it in contact with the rack to maintain control and good form.

Benefits of the Scrape The Rack Press

Whelan explains why it’s so great and how it can improve your overhead strength.

Better Stability:

By using the rack as a guide, lifters can maintain a consistent and proper bar path, which helps stabilize the weight and reduce the risk of shoulder strain.

Increased Muscle Emphasis

This variation emphasizes the deltoids and triceps while engaging the upper back muscles due to the controlled movement along the rack.

Setup Ease

Setting up inside the rack is safer, especially when lifting heavier weights. The safety bars can be adjusted to catch the bar if needed, and the rack acts as a guide and spotter while pressing.

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Improved Technique

The rack provides a tactile cue that helps lifters maintain good form, encouraging a vertical bar path and reducing excessive backward lean and lower back arching.

Workout and Programming Suggestions

The scrape-the-rack overhead press is excellent for anyone who has shoulder mobility to go overhead. Here, Whelan gives you sets and reps based on your workout experience.

Beginners: Three sets of 8-12 reps with a lighter weight to focus on form and technique and get used to the bar path.

Intermediate: Three sets of 6-8 reps, gradually increasing the weight as you become more comfortable with the movement, slowly building strength and hypertrophy.

Advanced: Five sets of 3-6 reps with heavier weights, focusing on maximal strength and power.

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Additional Considerations

Mobility: To perform overhead presses safely, ensure adequate shoulder and thoracic mobility. Incorporate mobility exercises such as shoulder arm bars, thoracic extensions, rotations, and lat stretches into your warm-up.

Progression: Gradually increase the weight as your strength and form improve, ensuring you do not compromise your technique for heavier loads.

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Working out but not seeing results? A PT confirms whether 30-minute workouts are top-tier for boosting fitness

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Working out but not seeing results? A PT confirms whether 30-minute workouts are top-tier for boosting fitness

While some of you have your healthy lifestyle down to a tee – balanced nutrition, adequate sleep and a finely tuned workout regime incorporating strength, cardio and flexibility training – others struggle to know where to start when it comes to fitness. And with Google searches for “Is 30 minutes of exercise a day enough?” spiking, it seems that many of you aren’t sure about the length of time or number of workouts to aim for weekly.

And to make matters even more confusing, knowing how often you should workout isn’t always as simple as it should be. You see, your progress will depend on a combination of factors which might seem unconnected to exercise but still have an impact. Sleep, for example, has been shown in various studies (like this one, published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology) to affect physical performance, while research also shows a bi-directional relationship between exercise and stress.

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The overlooked key to fitness? Strengthening your joints and tendons

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The overlooked key to fitness? Strengthening your joints and tendons

Isometric exercises, like planks or lunge holds, require holding a position for an extended period. In these positions, your muscles are firing, but you’re also working on the alignment of the joint and working the tendon to hold that position, says Wulke. Ho adds that while ligaments and joints cannot technically be trained directly like tendons, you can support their health by strengthening the surrounding muscles and encouraging proper movement patterns.

Wulke often programs training days with a mix of goals for her athletes: “high” days for muscle and strength development and “low” days focusing on alignment, isometric holds, and mobility. But most people don’t have enough time to dedicate separate days for joint-specific work. Instead, try integrating these movements into your existing strength training sessions. Consider adding a few sets of isometric holds during your warm-up or as a finisher.

(Is cracking your joints bad for you?)

During your workouts, focus on the eccentric phase of your movements. Slow down and maintain control throughout the exercise to help you ensure proper form. You can also use higher reps and lower weight to reduce the risk of overstressing connective tissues.

Last, Hinson recommends incorporating low-impact exercises such as walking, cycling, Pilates, water aquatics, and yoga. “Taking care of and improving the structures that make the joints stronger and more flexible—it really will pay huge dividends in keeping [people] out of my office and away from injury,” he says.

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Avoid doing these gym exercises now! Orthopaedic doctor reveals exercises that do more harm; the answers may shock you

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Avoid doing these gym exercises now! Orthopaedic doctor reveals exercises that do more harm; the answers may shock you

Did you know that some popular exercises that we all do at the gym to stay fit and healthy may be doing more harm than good? Dr Venkatesh Movva, an orthopaedic doctor trained in Sports Medicine, sat down with Ranveer Allahbadia for The Ranveer Podcast, where he talked about the exercise one should avoid at the gym. The answers will surprise you.

Dr Venkatesh Movva, an orthopaedic doctor, in a podcast with Ranveer Allahbadia.

(Also Read | Ranbir Kapoor ‘decides to clap’ in between his pullups. Guess how Alia Bhatt reacted?)

Avoid doing these gym exercises now!

In the clip shared on The Ranveer Show Podcast Instagram page, with the caption, “Dr Venkatesh on Which Exercises you should Avoid in Gym?”, Ranveer asks Dr Movva which exercises he would recommend gymgoers to avoid as an orthopaedic doctor. He suggested three exercises which are quite popular among gymgoers aiming to get fit, lose weight or stay healthy. According to him, one should not do overhead exercises, deadlifts, and crunches.

Dr Movva stated in the clip, “Overhead, heavy [exercise]. I mean, you can go stretch, but no military press, number one. Number two crunches; avoid them. Number three, deadlifts. (sic)” To this, Ranveer replied, “So, I’d replace the military press because it’s for the anterior delts with just front raises.” As an alternative, Dr Movva suggested people to ‘bend down’ during such exercises. “You can go bend down, raise it [weights], rather than overhead (sic),” he said.

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While Ranveer, a fitness enthusiast himself, said that he would replace crunches with planks, Dr Movva suggested ‘planks and bridges’.

Lastly, for why one should avoid deadlifts, an exercise you must have seen many celebrities doing at the gym and fitness influencers pushing their followers to include in their routine, the orthopaedic doctor said, “I see more injuries than benefits with the deadlifts. If you are really well-trained and have a good muscle balance, do it. But if you are trying to get better, that’s one thing you may want to avoid. Because the risk of injury is very high. There are so many other exercises that you can compensate without doing these things.”

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and not a substitute for professional medical advice. Always seek the advice of your doctor with any questions about a medical condition.

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