Posted by TimD on December 2, 2005, 8:12 am, in reply to "Re: Are Floor Presses Effective?"
Message modified by administrator timd December 2, 2005, 8:19 am
Well, the floor press does have some carry over to the chest, just not nearly as much as a full ROM exercise. Something I used to do (and still do) is to o pushups between saw horses. This allows me to use a hammer grip, and this way I can control the depth and ROM. Just do NOT go past the point of where it gets uncomfortable, and keep the arms close to your sides, This is a much more natural movement than having them flared out. It still put a lot of emphasis on chest, but also on the anterior delts and tris. As to a replacement for incline, well the only thing I can think of hammer grip DB inclines, following the same elbow placement, that is close in to the body, and lower it only as far as to the comfort point. For me, when I started out, that meant the bells stopped at about m chin level.
OK, all that being said, I think your first order of business would be to get the shoulder thing cleared up, then you can start with some of the above with light weight. I usually won't even discuss rehab on a forum, because I think that's something a qualified PT or Physician should recommend, but I can tell you how I went about it, and I think you should further get anything I did cleared before you attempt it. I started out with standar rotator cuff strengthening, and lots of flexibility work. I'm convinced that what caused my problem was concentrating on benching, without anything to balance out the shoulder girdle. Do a search on effective shoulder girdle exercises (there are some on this site and others), but what I used primarily were windmills, overhead squat with a wooden dowel, and towel/dowel dislocates. You can find descriptions of windmills here.
http://jva.ontariostrongman.ca/WINDMILLS.htm
At the point my shoulders were feeling good enough to go, I started back in with standard exercises, but making sure I kept all movements balanced out. I prefer palms facing grips for all my pushing movements. i.e palms in overhead preses with /DB's, benche of all angles with a palms facing grip, etc, and if I was working a vertical push movement (DB presses) I would balance it out with a vertical pull movement (lat pull/chinup/pullup). By the same token, if I was doing a push movement in the horizontal plane, I would balance it with a pull movement in that plane of motion, i.e DB row. It didn't reall take too long to get back into things, and although I can do flat BB benches, in a competetive style, I normally won't, I'll stick with a clean grip (slightly wider than shoulder width) on the BBhigh incline and P bbar dips with palms facing. Hope this helps somewhat, and give those windmills and overhead squats a try. They should really help you out with fleibility issues.
Tim
--Previous Message--
: I was wondering if floor presses are effective for the chest. I
: know they're not as good as regular presses but my shoulders
: aren't getting enough of a workout during my DB hammer presses,
: so I'm looking for ways to strengthen and protect them at the
: same time. Do you think that a couple sets of floor presses
: before the hammer benches would be beneficial? I kind of like
: the idea of targeting the triceps.
:
: Also Tim (and anyone else), I really want to do incline presses
: but they're murder on the impinged shoulder. Any replacement
: exercises? I know you went through this shoulder issue before,
: and I'm sure you remember how uncomfortable it is to have the
: hands away from the body or above the head.
:
: Thanks.
:
:
: --Previous Message--
: Well, it depends on what you mean by effective. Efective
: for
: what? They are normally used by powerlifters to work on the
: lockout portion or the bench press. It does not have full range
: of motion, and works primarily the triceps oriented portion of
: the lift. If you need to strengthen that up, then yes, it's
: effective. Now if you mean is it a viable Bench Press
: replacement, I'd go with no, it doesn't give you the full range
: of motion benefits that the DB hammer grip benches do, but that
: doesn't mean you can't include them every now and then as an
: assistance to your DB benches.
: Tim
:
: --Previous Message--
: I'm looking for ways to bench press while protecting a slight
: impingement or tendonitis in my rotator cuff. Using a hammer
: grip has worked out well, but today I tried a floor press for
: the first time and it felt great - no soreness during or after.
: Obviously, since you're laying on the floor you can't lower your
: elbows beneath the plane of your shoulders, which puts far less
: strain on the delts.
:
: But does the floor press offer enough benefits, or should I
: stick with a regular bench press with the hammer grip?
:
: Thanks.
:
:
:
:
:
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