The Military Press - David Webster

 

Jamie Ding

We all reek of ego and life's a masked tragedy. 

Aw poop.

Okay then! 

When strong men get together they generally test their strength by seeing how much they can lift off the floor, or see how much they can lift overhead.

In the weight-overhead instance there are invariably problems. Lifting experts do what is known as a clean & jerk but, because of the high element of skill this is not usually accepted as a good guide to the relative strength of individuals. 

The most widely accepted test of real strength in overhead lifting is still 

the military press while walking a tightrope held upright in the jaws of two men.

Right! And matter of fact, the term "pressing on a tightrope" once referred to the heels-together strictness of previous "military" presses in competition. Okay, say-no-more, say . . . no . . . more . . . nudge, nudge, screw you and all your memories in a wink or two . . . that's it with the laughs and bits of historical trivia on this one. Straight as an arrow from here to the end,  however bitter that may prove to be . . . 

Oi, go bang your tone-deaf head on a stenchy toilet seat repeatedly and call it "music" 

like all good lifters do. 

Do it. 

Do it endlessly like a brain-dead cunt-sponge!

That's the stuff. 

"And if my life

is like the dust, ooh 

that hides a glow of lows."

Fuck Me. 

You think you can write, don't ya.

Don't we all.

Clyde Otis and his hellishly fine lyrics.

Anyhows . . .   

Holy smokes!

It's every lamb for himself and

god against all.

And so saith Werner Herzog.

Humor circumferences . . .  

large and small.

The most widely accepted test of real strength in overhead lifting is still the two-hands military press. 

Many people overlook the fact that to get a good press the lifting of the weight to the chest is very important. The clean to the chest should be as fast and as easy as possible to save energy and to get the psychological benefit of making the weight feel light at the shoulders. 

I advise a half-squat clean, going down only as far as you have to. The harder it is to clean the more you must squat. You may split if you wish but the added recovery time to the upright position takes just a little bit more out of you.

TRAINING FOR THE PRESS

The press will, of course, only be one exercise in a schedule and a great deal will depend on your aims and motivations. If you are using the press as a muscle builder the composition of your sets and repetitions will be completely different from those who wish to press maximum poundages for one single repetition in a competition.

The complete beginner would probably include a single set of 10 reps on the press as part of a 10- to 12-exercise routine but would quickly progress to several sets of 8-10 reps. 

After a while he would considerably increase the weights being used and correspondingly reduce the number of reps. Around 3-4 sets of 5-6 reps would be fairly common for a person at this stage of training. 

Those bitten with the "big lift bug" would tackle things slightly differently. The popular "pyramid" method which involves several sets of reps that decrease as the weight increases; for example: 

105x5

160x4

170x3

180x2

190x1

210x1

no pumped like a mosquito jokes, 

no jokes about performance enhancing bugs

and/or powders, 

no William Lee references

no lightweight romance novel titled The Nude Brunch and

no K-holed Kafka humor, okay? 

Moving on . . . 

Joe Dater, cartoonist for the New Yorker since 2006, but not that one ->

This pyramid approach is similar to the way lifters warm up for competitions so it is essential to be acquainted with the pattern and have detailed knowledge of the volume and intensity of work best suited to giving maximum results. Gain experience and learn how to select your poundages for different rep sets. Without some fucking app telling you as though you had morphed into an insect-host with a digital parasite burrowing into your brain. 

It goes without saying that in training your would only infrequently work up to maximum efforts. 

To get good results you should work on a long-term palindrome, e.g., about some personal trainer goon who only trains shoulders leading a group of newbs (deltoid igniting idiot led) as well as a LONG TERM PLAN and not think just of the current schedule and the one you might do next. So, you have your rep, you have yer set, and you's got yer workout . . . each owed focus and McConcentration and not mental castration . . . piling up consistently like shite in a dank and light-lacking alley known for rather foul odors. This piling-up of CONSISTENT Press workouts is what WILL increase your poundages. The rest is really . . . um . . . you get my drift and does that really rhyme with shit-n-shite? Short shrift, TIFF in Toronto, sounds shrill, now it's dumb and done 'er.

In the early stages of training you should do a lot of pressing exercises of one kind or another. These assistance exercises are invaluable to build strength and muscular endurance and the latter is a necessary foundation for later progress. Without a basis of work like this you will not be able to have profitable intensive workouts at later stages in training and your rest pauses between sets will be longer than they should be. When the pace is slow, progress is likewise at a snail's pace. 

One of America's best-ever pressers was Russ Knipp who actually broke the world record in his own bodyweight division. 

Russ told me he favored sets of 5 reps repeated for 8-10 sets. He usually repeated this 2-3 times a week, and I believe this would be a good foundation-builder for top military presses. 

A completely different style of training was done by Bill March when he was one of the world's best. Bill liked isometric work on the power rack and did 3 reps only, with a 12-second hold. 

You should always work at various stages of the press if you are employing isometric techniques. Do one hold at chin level, one at eye level or top-of-head level, and one halfway between this and the arms fully extended position. 

Personally, I always believed a 12-second hold was too long as there is a tendency to hold the breath for that time and such pressure leads to "blacking out," also known as self-redaction, you fucking clown.  However, March got good results with this method although this was all he did for the press on Monday to Thursday. On Saturdays he would do a full press.

Victor Kurentsov, the Soviet middleweight, favored 7 sets presses, starting with a few sets of 4 and finishing with sets of 2 reps. This was a workout with around 20-24 reps. 

The Russians are very meticulous in researching various training principles, and the results they have achieved in international competitions testifies to the efficiency of their methods and other stuff ingested, injected, administered and partaken of. Yow and Zir. 

The top coaches in the U.S.S.R. have stated that pressing should be included in each training session. They go further and suggest two series of presses, the first in 3-5 sets at the beginning of training, with the press itself and DIFFERENT GRIP WIDTHS, then 6-8 sets at the end of the workout, doing incline presses and other assistance exercises. Elite lifters should do 30-40 presses per training session, a total of some 400 presses per month if you have hopes of becoming a really great presser. 

ASSITANCE WORK FOR THE PRESS

There are a number of good exercises which will add variety to workouts and at the same time help to improve your pressing poundages. These are mainly presses of one kind or another but the slight differences in positions, resulting in the muscles being worked from different angles, will greatly improve basic strength in the shoulder and arm region.

The seated press is one exercise which helps to eliminate the tendency to cheat when pressing. 

More later, to be continued, ENJOY YOUR LIFTING, fuck off and die, 

it's ALL humor.

As a point of reference, here's what the three winners at a lifting meet look like to people with no interest in the sport and, oh yeah, we're all so different from one another. These Jeopardy motherfuckers are the same thing in a different game.

Let's get Don Frye on that show! 

"I'll take your fuckin' chin for next to nothin', Ken Jennings." 

Sorry, Don, there's no such category or SNL ripoff. 

We'll now go with Norb Schemansky while Benny Podda clings to and climbs the curtains with a howl.

"Can I get Meat & Potatoes for 100, Ken."

Sorry, Norb, there's no such category. 

"Okay. Can I get Meat & Potatoes for 200, Ken."

 

Show me a bigger mistake than the human race and

can someone kindly define misanthropic for me.