Go north middle-age man, your journey continues

There’s an old saying that “whatever goes up must come down.” And this is true for doing overhead press barbell, dumbbell, or kettlebell exercises.  I’m a fan of overhead press work and have put it, again, on my short list of go to exercises.

This isn’t the first time in my middle-age man fitness training journey that I’ve had a focus and fascination with overhead training.  In my former training life, I did a couple semesters of Olympic weightlifting training, the snatch and clean and jerk lifts. 

While doing so, I understood that there undoubtedly were lightweight members of the Chinese women’s Olympic weightlifting team hoisting considerably more overhead than I was doing on my best training days.  Nonetheless, I was able to increase my lifts, peaking with best effort lifts of 160 lbs. for the snatch and 185 lbs. for the clean and jerk.

Later, I moved on the other things including a semester of the StrongLifts barbell training program.  There, my best overhead effort was a barbell press of 175 lbs.  I wish I had a video of that lift, but I don’t.

These days, almost a decade later, I’m at it again with overhead work, doing single and double kettlebells snatch and overhead presses, either standalone efforts or as part of a kettlebell complex or chain.  

I like and thrive doing the overhead stuff. Someone once told me that when I exercise, don’t lay when I can sit, don’t sit when I can stand, and lift something heavy overhead.  Single and double kettlebell snatch and overhead press work are perfect for doing just that. 

I’m using the two pair sets of kettlebells I own for my overhead work, a pair of 20kg kettlebells and a pair of 24kg kettlebells.  Rather than go out and add to my collection at this point, I’ll focus on progressive resistance improvements by increasing the rep volume I do, either as a single set maximum reps effort or total reps completed within a given time.

 

Go north middle-age man, your journey continues.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum