reckonerExercise Shoulders
Standing dumbbell press
The overhead press with nothing behind you and one weight in each hand. Take the bench away and your legs and trunk have to hold you still while each shoulder presses on its own. You lift less, and more of you works to lift it.
Glutes tight, ribs down, press straight up.
- Pattern
- Vertical push
- Trains
- Front delts, triceps
- Kit
- Dumbbell
- Loading
- A weight you choose
- Reckoner prescribes
- 4 sets of 6 to 10 reps at RPE 8
- Progression step
- 2 kg once the top of the range is clean
- Skill
- Some technique
- Recovery cost
- Moderate
- Not prescribed if you have declared
- Shoulder, elbow, lower back
Muscles worked
How to do it
Get the bells to your shoulders with your legs
Pick them up off the floor with a flat back, then bring them to your shoulders with a small bend of the knees rather than a slow curl. Curling a heavy pair into place is a set of an exercise you did not choose.
Feet hip width, glutes tight, ribs down
That is the cue Reckoner shows you, and it is most of the lift. Squeeze your glutes and pull your ribs down toward your hips before the bells move, so you press from one solid column instead of a bent one. Soft knees are fine. Knees that dip and drive make it a push press.
Start at ear height with the elbows in front
Palms forward or turned slightly in, elbows a little in front of your body rather than flat out to the sides. That is where the shoulder presses from without the joint hunting for room.
Press up and slightly in
The bells travel toward each other and finish over your shoulders, arms straight, close but not touching. Let your head come through as they pass it, so you finish stacked under the weight rather than with it out in front.
Lower to ear height, every rep
Bring them back under control to the start. If you cannot get there without leaning back, the weight is the thing to change, not the range.
What goes wrong
Leaning back to finish the rep
The ribs flare, the lower back arches and the press tilts toward an incline press. It feels like strength because the weight still goes up. The more upright a press is, the more it belongs to the shoulder, and the flatter it gets, the more the chest takes over3. If your ribs will not stay down, the bells are too heavy.
Bringing your seated numbers to it
In the same lifters, the standing dumbbell press came out about ten per cent lighter than the seated one and about seven per cent lighter than a standing barbell press1. That is what taking the backrest away costs. It is a fact about the position, not a report on your week.
Pressing out in front of your face
If the bells drift forward they finish in front of your shoulders, and your body leans to balance them. Press up, not out, and get your head through at the top so the weight ends over your feet.
How Reckoner progresses this lift
Six weeks of this lift, from 14 kg, run through the real engine. Nothing below was typed in: the prescription, the decision and the sentence beside it all come from the same code that writes your week.
| Week | Prescribed | What it did |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 4 x 6 at 14 kg | First week Where the run starts. Nothing is logged yet, so nothing has changed. |
| 2 | 4 x 7 at 14 kg | More reps 6 → 7 repsYou finished every set with three reps left in the tank (RPE 7) and room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 3 | 4 x 8 at 14 kg | More reps 7 → 8 repsYou finished every set with three reps left in the tank (RPE 7) and room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 4 | 4 x 9 at 14 kg | More reps 8 → 9 repsYou finished every set with three reps left in the tank (RPE 7) and room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 5 | 4 x 10 at 14 kg | More reps 9 → 10 repsYou finished every set with three reps left in the tank (RPE 7) and room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 6 | 2 x 10 at 14 kg | Deload 4 → 2 setsFive weeks of building, then one week lighter. About 40% of the sets come off. The load holds and your reps stay where you earned them, so you keep the strength and lose the fatigue. |
| Next | 4 x 6 at 16 kg | Load up 14 kg → 16 kgYou earned this before the lighter week. The lighter week was for recovery, not a test, so the rise waited for it to end. Now the dumbbell weight goes up to 16 kg. The lighter week is over, so this is back to four sets. |
Real engine output, not an illustration. Every row was produced by running the engine itself when this page was generated.
The full rule, and why the reps move before the load does, is in how Reckoner decides to add weight.
Questions people ask
Standing or seated?
Seated moves more weight. Standing works more of you. In the same lifters, the standing dumbbell press was about ten per cent lighter than the seated one, yet the side of the shoulder read about fifteen per cent less active seated and the rear about twenty four per cent less1, and the muscle down the front of the stomach read about eighty one per cent less active seated2. That is activity in one session rather than growth over months, so read it as two lifts with two jobs. Both are in the library.
Dumbbells or a barbell?
Standing, the barbell press moved about seven per cent more weight, read about fifteen per cent less activity in the front of the shoulder and about thirty nine per cent more in the triceps than the dumbbells did1. The bar ties your hands together and lets the arms help. The dumbbells make each shoulder do its own work. Neither is the better lift. They ask different questions.
What does Reckoner do when this lift stalls?
It eases the load first and lets you rebuild toward the weight you were stuck at. Only if the same wall comes back does it offer you a different press, and the lift you swap to starts on its own record rather than carrying this one's progress.
Sources
- Saeterbakken and Fimland, Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 2013. Effects of body position and loading modality on muscle activity and strength in shoulder presses one repetition maximum being about ten per cent lower for standing dumbbells than seated dumbbells and about seven per cent lower than the standing barbell; medial deltoid activity about fifteen per cent and posterior deltoid about twenty four per cent lower seated than standing with dumbbells; anterior deltoid about fifteen per cent lower and triceps about thirty nine per cent higher with the standing barbell than standing dumbbells
- Saeterbakken and Fimland, European Journal of Applied Physiology, 2012. Muscle activity of the core during bilateral, unilateral, seated and standing resistance exercise rectus abdominis activity being about eighty one per cent lower in the seated bilateral dumbbell shoulder press than standing, with erector spinae activity similar seated and standing
- Rodríguez-Ridao and colleagues, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2020. Effect of Five Bench Inclinations on the Electromyographic Activity of the Pectoralis Major, Anterior Deltoid, and Triceps Brachii during the Bench Press Exercise anterior deltoid activity highest at the steepest bench angle and the middle and lower pectoralis major highest with the bench flat