I don’t usually write blog posts to romance one particular exercise, but today I need to confess my love for the forearm press.
The trouble with putting any exercise on a pedestal is that one person’s best exercise is another person’s worst. One person’s medicine is another’s poison. So take this all with a grain of salt 😉
Before I say more about why I love the forearm press, and why it’s a staple in my current movement practice, check out this quick tutorial by moi:
I edited this clip from one of my weekly Movement And Strength Training Foundations online classes, also known as “Struggle-Along With Monika Doing Basic Bodyweight Exercises”.
Because the basics never get old…
To the outside observer, this exercise looks like the most boring thing in the world. Internally, however, its very exciting.
Don’t be deceived by the simplicity or basic-ness of the forearm press!
As many of my clients will attest, this exercise is not just chilling-out on your forearms, its freakin’ intentional work. And the benefits are in the details.
So the rest of this blog post is allll about the details.
You can build shoulder health and strength simultaneously
In my own journey to shoulder health and strength, I did pretty much everything wrong.
I just wanted to be able to do pushups and chin ups and over-head pressing and one-armed handstands, but I didn’t even know what a shoulder was, nor was I doing anything useful to prepare my shoulders for the movement capacity and positional integrity those exercises require.
You can learn from my mistakes.
The forearm press is where I wish I started my arm-strength jounrye.
It is an awesome way to set that foundation and build a solid AF shoulder girdle so you can do all the upper body things.
So here’s the top 8 reasons why I’m loving the forearm press right now as a shoulder health and strength development exercise.
8 reasons why I love the forearm press
1. Get a “neck stretch” while you get stronger
This exercise builds mad shoulder strength while giving you a great upper back, upper trapezius, and neck stretch at the same time. In fact, feeling the neck and upper trap stretch is an indicator that you’re in a good position.
If you set up the forearm press corretctly, you should be able to feel a bit of stretch on the back of your neck and your upper traps. Isn’t that a great bonus?
In fact, in the forearm press, a lot of the work you will feel is coming from muscles working in a lengthened position- An eccentric muscle action.
Here are some of the muscles that are getting this lovely stretchy, worky opportunity in the forearm press, besides your neck and upper traps:
- Triceps (via elbow flexion, shoulder flexion)
- Rhomboids (via scapular protraction, upward rotation)
- Posterior deltoids (via scapular protraction, arm horizontal adduction)
- Lats (via shoulder external rotation, shoulder flexion)
- All the traps- upper, middle, and lower (via scapular protraction and depression)
- Cervical spine extensors (neck flexion, scap depression)
If you’d like to really nerd out, some muscles will be working in both a long and short position at the same time, in different planes of motion. Fun eh?
Let’s take the lats, for example: You should feel a bit of lat stretch by virtue of the scapular protraction and the fact that your arms are in front of your body (shoulder flexion). However, at the same time, your lats need to act concentrically to hold your shoulders down from your ears (scapular depression).
What I hope you can take away from that is that it is often more productive to cue yourself with joint movements (push the floor away, scaps towards your butt pockets) than muscle actions (engage your lats!).
If I say to you, “Use your lats!”, what joint action it that asking for? This muscle crosses multiple joints… Which joint are we even talking about?? Should you “use your lats” eccentrically or concentrically? (And now you know the answer is BOTH).
2. Scapular protraction strength: Push before you pull?
Note that the forearm press is a pushing exercise.
Pushing implies you DO NOT want to squeeze your shoulder blades together. The main joint action in the forearm press is scapular protraction, which you get by pushing the floor away to spread your scaps wider apart.
Contrary to what some folks think, shoulder blades back and down is not the epitome of shoulder health, stability, or “good posture”. In fact, in any arms supported work, we want to spread those scaps and push the floor down (protraction).
What about the 3:1 pull to push ratio?
I don’t know if this is a thing anymore, but when I first began working as a trainer I was taught that in an optimal training program, one should have a 3:1 ratio of upper body pulling to pushing exercises.
So for exmaple, for every push-up, there should be three rowing exercises.
I don’t know if I agree with this.
I feel that a lot of folks can get more out of initially working on pushing, rather than starting with pullling. But that doesn’t mean be silly like me and start with 26 different push-up exercises…
Here’s my main case for push first, and how the forearm press serves as an awesome pushing experience:
Muscles lengthen before they contract– Gary Ward‘s 2nd rule of movement.
This refers to how, in gait, muscles are stimulated to generate a contraction from their fully lengthened position. Like pulling back an elastic band in order to project it forward. Muscles load to explode.
While this is describing muscles in the context of gait, I think it also applies to strength training.
When we push, and protract the scapuale, the muslces of retraction (like the rhomboids, middle trapezius, and pals) lengthen, loading them eccentrically (like pulling back the slingshot).
So if we are strategically thinking ahead, we can prepare the muscles that retract the scaps (pictured above) by first training them to load eccentrically, using pushing movements that protract the scaps.
Give the rhomboids and traps no option but to contract, by first lengthening them.
It’s not about “stretching” them. The stretch is simply an indicator of scapulae that are actually protracting, giving the the muscles of retraction the stimulation to contract from a more lengthened position, ultimately improving their strength and function.
But what about developing rounded-forwards shoulders?
Many of us have been given and idea that to stand with “good posture” is to pull our shoulders back. And yet many folks have shoulder problems because of this.
I can recall two recent clients in particular with severely retracted scapulae who could barely budge them apart from each other, and had “shoulder and neck stiffness”.
Upon asking, one of them told me she was raised by nuns who demanded “shoulders back” all day long. The other is a lady in her 70s who was perpetually told by her mom not to slouch when she was a kid.
Got shoulder problems? Blame the church and your mom 😉 Just kidding…
Pushing exercises that demand scapular protraction, can help us find a more balanced, centered way, naturally, by showing our shoudler girdle to both ends of the the shoulder girdle protraction to retraction spectrum.
I like the forearm presss for this because it helps liberate both our mind and body from learned postural propaganda.
Here’s another little video clip on the topic of “good posture” (from one of my Movement Deep Dive sessions):
One of my online students actually remarked how it felt like her shoulders were in a more naturally “held back” position, even though the forearm press deliberated asks you NOT to squeeze your shoudlers together: Protraction, not REtraction.
Another friend/client of mine gave this feedback afte doing this exercise with me in one of my online classes:
So that is why I like to use pushing exercises before pulling (rows, chin-ups, etc). And the forearm press accomplishes this nicely.
3. Awesome preparation for more advanced upper body weight bearing exericses
Mastery of this position will build a foundation for anything else that requires weight-bearing into yours arms with a solid shoulder girdle.
For example:
- Static beast and crawling progressions (for the Animal Flowists)
- Plank and push-up variations
- Dolphin, forearm stands, and headstand variation, and other arm balancing postures common in yoga, like crow and crane
- Handstands (my current training obsession)
- Other fun floor-based flowy movement stuff, a la Ido Portal, or Animal Flow.
4. Safe exercise for most folks with wrist complaints
Many of my in-person clients are women. Most of them are in their 50s/60s and are learning to support themselves on their arms for the first time ever. Back in the 1950s-70sish days, strength training wasn’t a thing many women were encouraged to do.
Well times are a changin’. And developing arm strength to hold onesself up off the floor is an uber empowering thing for all genders.
However, due to never actually training hand supported positions, many peoples’ wrists might not be comfortable in extension with their bodyweight loaded on top of them.
Being on the forearms makes weight-bearing through the arms possible even for people with cranky wrists, so they can start training their shoulder girdle position and strength without putting compressive strain on their wrists.
5. You get great feedback from the floor and no fancy equipment or expensive coach required
I love my daily floor time (the floor is actually one of my top 3 favourite tools for moving with more ease and less pain, I wrote about in my 3 Essential Tools PDF resource, have you read it yet?).
Putting our forearms or hands on the floor creates a closed-chain environment.
Closed-chain upper body exercises gives us amazing feedback about our body position, no coach or special equipment required.
In the forearm press, here’s a few ways the floor can give you great feedback to help execute the exercise with better quality and precision without someone like me hovering over you, yelling commands:
Deliberately push against the floor: The real work and intensity comes from pushing your forearms down into the floor really hard, like you’re pushing right to China. Or if you live in China, push your way to America (but not so hard you strain and hyperventilate…).
Notice your body position in relation to the floor : As you hold, get your position cues from the floor:
- Do you see the floor moving closer to your face? This might mean your head is changing from it’s start position, drooping lower. Don’t let the floor get closer to your face.
- Can you push your chest up higher from the floor- maintain the “press” part (scapular protraction)?
- As you do the rocking forwards variation (did you watch the tutorial?), use the floor as something to aim your forehead for to gauge the distance you’re moving. Every time you practice, try to rock farther towards the floor.
- Feel your hand and arm contact against the floor: Can you get all 5 hand knuckles on the floor? How about your wrists? Do your hands slowly start to move more and more inward of your elbows as you hold? Try to hold firm contact of all knuckles, wrists, and elbows- It changes the way it feels and helps you develop a more powerful push.
Being aware of where all your body parts are on and in relation to the floor helps you helps you be your own best coach. Since many of us are working out at home these days with no outside eye, the floor is a great tool, built into the forearm press, at no extra cost 😉
6. Tons of fun progressions to challenge your whole body
There are endless forearm press variations to play with when you’ve mastered the basics and are ready to progress the challenge level!
Here’s one progression that’s been a staple for me for the past couple of months: The knees hovering elbow bend (don’t have a fancy name for it…). Welcome to tricep city.
I originally stole this from Lizette Pompa, realized how hard it was, and reverse engineered it back to the forearm press, because that was honestly where I should have started. Basics…
Here’s Lizette making it look oh-so effortless. And notice how she can do it without rocking her butt back to her heels, like I have to do, making it a more pure upper body exercise:
7. Ability to self-modulate the intensity purely with your intention
Working out at home without equipment means we have to find other clever ways to modulate exercise inensity than adding external resistance (weights).
As I often say to my clients/students, you can make this exercise as hard or as easy as you want simply through your intention to do so.
Find your own specific intensity threshold at which you can perform the exercise with good quality, maintain your structural integrity, and still be able to breathe (use your quality of breathing to gauge your intensity threshold, ie if you start to hyperventilate, you’re done).
- Push down the floor more (make it more intense) or less (less intense).
- Hold for longer (more breath cycles) or shorter.
- Focus on keeping your body more forward on your arms (harder), or back slightly off your arms (easier).
Little tweaks to where you’re focusing and fine-tuning your body positioning help this become harder or easier without even having to move to a more “advanced” variation.
8. Becomes a lovely way to tune into breathing mechanics
In this position we can get a few really nice things, breathing mechanics-wise:
- With scaps protracted, all the muscles of the upper back are lengthened, and the area called the posterior mediastinum can open up. The posterior mediastinum (see photo below) can get a little squashed, and some vital tubes and things pass through this very small region. Keeping it open and breathing into it is important for both general health and movement reasons. Push the floor, expand your upper back, breathe into it, and enjoy the extra space between your lungs and spine.
- With the head a bit lower than the hips- a slight inversion, this position also helps enhance the “pump handle” breathing action of the upper chest- Forwards and upwards expansion. See what I mean by pump-handle in this cool animation of breathing mechanics
- The forearm press position makes it easier to hold the ribcage slightly “exhaled” and down, which helps to more easily access the abdominal muscles and create greater intra-abdominal pressure. This helps one to access a better diaphragmatic breating pattern, without flaring open the ribcage excessively with each breath, with better abdominal co-contraction, which means hello abz.
Conclusions?
I love this exercise because it makes my shoulders and neck feel awesome. Like I got a great workout and an upper trap stretch at the same time.
But you are not me…
Most people don’t have any problems with it, but if you do, don’t force through it! Get some help if you have pain with this or any movement.
The forearm press is wonderful for both shoulder health and strength, and is also a gateway to more advanced arm balancing exercises, like headstands, and handstands, if that’s a thing you have on your movement-goals-list.
So if you want to build a solid handstand from the ground up, I would start here, with the forearm press. Basics, basics, basics!
Want to be able to do push-ups really well? I would start here.
Even just to be able to do set your shoulder girdle up for a perfect plank position, I would start here.
Don’t be like silly, young Monika. Start your shoulder strength journey from the ground up, and enjoy more linear progress because you won’t have to go back and work on the basics later, after experiencing discomfort, like me.
Give it a try, and let me know how it goes for you! I’d love to hear how the forearm press feels for you. Love it or hate it? Probably a little of both 😉
In my Movement and Strength Training Foundations online classes we worked on the forearm press for four weeks straight. If you’d like to learn more about these classes or try one out, shoot me an email 🙂
Thank God been teaching this for years