The barbell overhead press is one of the best exercises you can do because it targets many muscle groups at once. This is the same reason why other exercises such as bench press, deadlifts, squats, and barbell rows are some of the best exercises.
Let’s take a look at the muscle groups that are being activated while doing a barbell overhead press. And also the benefits you can expect to see you from doing this exercise.
The major primary muscle groups being trained in the barbell overhead press are the shoulders which have three heads known as the deltoids. The deltoids have an anterior middle and posterior heads. Other muscle groups that are being activated during the barbell overhead press are the trapezius, triceps, serratus, abs, and obliques.
The primary muscle group that is getting activated the most during a barbell overhead press is the shoulder. It is without a doubt one of the best exercises that you can do for improving shoulder aesthetics in strength.
This is because it activates the anterior and middle deltoids at once. You have three deltoid shoulder muscles being the anterior, middle, and posterior.
The only other exercise that targets all very deltoids would be the dumbbell shoulder press. The barbell overhead press does not activate the posterior deltoid as much as the dumbbell.
However, it is a great after size for getting a more aesthetic look because of improving your shoulders size. There are quite a few different muscles being work during the barbell overhead press.
Muscle groups that are worked from overhead press
| Shoulders | Triceps |
| Trapezius | Serratus |
| Abs | Obliques |
Triceps
Another popular muscle group that is known to be activated during the overhead press is the triceps. These are the long muscle that runs along the posterior or backside of the arm.
If you are trying to improve your arm aesthetics with barbell training techniques, the triceps are actually what will improve the size and make your arms look bigger.
It’s a pretty big misconception because a lot of people will typically train their biceps, which they should the but ultimately it’s your triceps that will make your arms appear bigger.
It’s the long head of the triceps that will actually get the most muscle activation from the overhead press. There are exercises like a dumbbell overhead tricep extension that will help with increasing tricep size.
Trapezius
Now that we know the overhead barbell press really causes muscle recruitment from muscle groups such as power deltoids and triceps. The next muscle group to look at is the traps.
It’s only natural as you can set with your hips slightly tilted and take both hands to your side make a fist head slightly back and push straight up and contract and you can feel the traps being work.
These are the muscles between your shoulder and your neck. Think of someone in like Brock Lesnar is a perfect example of someone who has some monster traps.
It’s important to have good trap strength because they help when we lift things above our heads such as an overhead barbell press.
Pretty common for most to fill more fatigue in their traps than their shoulders and would easily just assume that they’re working in their traps more.
This is because they are both actually contributing to the concentric and eccentric part of the exercise, as well as the four other muscle groups.
This is because we should be constantly moving in our training with our sets in our reps and never become static or stagnant.
I’ve made plenty of mistakes in the past by just doing the same amount of weight while lifting heavy and the same exercises. Well, I did see some results I was not getting the best bang for my buck with the time spent in the gym.
One really important thing to consider is that the overhead barbell press really depends upon Our traps for quite a large range of motion for the exercise.
Exercises like the shrugs target the primary muscle group members such as the traps and also shrug is performed during the overhead press.
The muscle group that most wants to improve our chest muscle groups. However, the overhead barbell press is not the best choice of exercise for activating muscle growth in the chest.
This is because only the upper chest is slightly targeted. The overhead press will, however, increase your strength on other exercises like the bench press which will in turn increase growth in our chest.
Depending on your body type and genetics if you need to improve your upper chest this probably isn’t the best exercise to do that. Exercises such as the incline bench press that’s one of the best exercises. And can also help with strength in the overhead barbell press.
It’s the bench press is one of the best exercises to help build in a more aesthetically pleasing upper body because it helps grow our shoulders and upper chest.
Abs and Obliques
Last but not least the overhead press trains our abs and obliques. I’m not the biggest fan in the world of doing ab exercises but studies have shown that while standing and doing an overhead press can activate the core muscles.
It also stimulates our core more than exercises like the deadlift, squat, and bench press according to a study.
Lastly, the barbell overhead press is an important exercise for improving your serratus anterior muscles. If you were to make a flexing motion these muscles are on the anterior front side of the lats.
They are located Just underneath the armpits. Keeping these muscle groups strong parts of the kinetic chain that is connected to our shoulder strength.
Barbell vs Dumbbell overhead press, which is better?
It’s tough to say that one is better than another because they both have their pros and cons. The dumbbell overhead press exercises are good because they can help correct imbalances in the body and train all the anterior, middle, and posterior deltoids.
The barbell overhead press can only train the anterior and middle. The Benefit that’s doing a barbell overhead press is that you’re able to lift more weight because of the stability of the barbell versus controlling a dumbbell in each hand.
The barbell overhead press is better when it comes to building overall general strength and it also helps increase your bench press as well.
With all of this being said the dumbbell overhead press recruits more muscles in the anterior by 11% more, middle 7% more, as well as the posterior deltoid.
The dumbbell overhead press exercise is better for targeting all three heads of the deltoids but It just comes down to preference and what your goals are. I like dealing with a barbell overhead press but also prefer the dumbbell overhead press.
Final thoughts
The barbell overhead press works muscle groups such as power shoulder or deltoid which are the primary muscles trained. There are five other muscle groups that are also activated during this movement.
These muscle groups are traps, serratus, obliques, abs, and triceps. Trapezius muscles play an important role because they are activated during the concentric part of the movement.
The overhead barbell press is better for training abs Then exercises like the bench press, deadlift, and squat. The barbell overhead press should be included and every training program as it is a compound movement in recruits all of these muscles at once.