3000 Pound Shoulder Press

By Carla DiGirolamo MD, CFL1

Monostructural (single-movement) workouts are an essential complement to any training program. They allow undivided attention to movement mechanics without distraction by fatigue or complexity generated by the addition of other movements. These workouts typically target muscle stamina with higher volume in a set time domain and are typically short workouts that can be added at the end of any training day or as a stand-alone when you are under a time crunch.

Today’s movement focus is the standing dumbbell strict shoulder press. This movement targets the muscles of the shoulders, but less obviously challenges core strength! Your goal is to get to 3000 pounds with either lighter weight and more repetitions or heavier weight and fewer repetitions.

Why should every mid-life woman do this? Because it’s a very quick and efficient way to improve your bone density, muscle, and metabolic health and build that pillar of core strength that supports your hips, shoulders, and knees to keep you injury-free.

Warm Up

5 rounds for completion

•  10 easy push-ups
•  30-second high plank hold

Movement Practice

Watch the video and review the mechanics of the shoulder press. Review the examples below and select your weights and repetitions that will total 3000 lbs. If this volume is not accessible to you, reduce the weight to 2000 lbs - 1 ton is still not too shabby!!

Example 1:

•  2x 15 pound dumbbells = 30 lbs.
•  3000 lbs / 30 lbs = 100 repetitions
•  Perform 100 repetitions any way you can in the shortest period of time. This could be two big sets of 20 repetitions then the remaining 60 in smaller sets, or keep it even with 10 sets of 10 repetitions with a set rest interval in between.

Example 2: If you have a barbell or heavier dumbbells:

•  If you are using a 50 lb barbell
•  3000 lbs / 50 lbs = 60 repetitions
•  Again perform larger sets of 10-12 repetitions in the beginning and taper to smaller sets at the end or keep the sets even with a set interval of rest in between.

Workout

•  3000 lb dumbbell shoulder press in the shortest period of time.

Anticipated time: 10-12 minutes.

Note: It’s ok to scale this workout if you are not feeling like this kind of volume. Simply reduce the goal weight to 2000 lbs or even 1000 lbs. Your body, your workout!

No matter what your scale, you moved a lot of weight today!!! In the words of my friend Selene Yeager @fitchick3, “Your body did that!”

Cool-Down

High-volume workouts necessitate attention to tissue care to help jump-start recovery. A good shoulder stretch sequence fits the bill after high-volume shoulder work. Check out this 15-minute Shoulder Opening Yoga Flow sequence.