In Crossfit as in life we are often required to go overhead. The movement should be the same whether we are doing heavy presses or placing an enormous box of old college textbooks on the top shelf in the garage.
We are constantly reminding our athletes to maintain a neutral low back position and stabilize the spine under load, task, or intensity. This is most commonly cued by telling you to pull your belly button to spine, pull your pelvic floor up, and anchor the bottom of the rib cage. When doing presses however many of us break at our rib cages and hyper-extend our low back as the bar gets overhead. This is not only a weaker position, but one that sets us up for potential injury. In other words if you want to press more weight overhead then you need to keep that neutral low back position and spine stabilized throughout the movement.
Take a look at the picture below. Notice anything strange? Let me help you out – that huge hyper-extension in my lower back and break at my rib cage is not good. Presses should not look like this. This position is dangerous and weak. This is also what my press looks like if I don’t mobilize my lats and triceps prior to pressing. Some of us (myself included) struggle with this positional fault not because we aren’t fighting like crazy to keep our back neutral and midline stable, but because we literally don’t yet have the range of motion required to go overhead.
