Why Is My Shoulder Press Plateauing?

You’ve probably tried breaking the upper plateau of the press by hitting a little higher and doing more reps. And yet, they had little to no success.

Now, there are a few ways we can plan our workouts to overcome this plateau. But the truth is, many people don’t have enough freedom of movement and mobility in key areas.

This makes it harder for them to press the weights. This is also why you can’t get stronger from overload no matter what you do.

Why Is My Shoulder Press Plateauing?

Reason 1: Thoracic spine

The first thing that limits your strength in developing overload is the lack of mobility in the thoracic spine. Or in other words, your waist. Due to the amount of sitting and bending that most of us do every day, our mid-back is locked in a relaxed position. This negatively affects our air press. This is because the inability to stretch the mid-back limits the strength of the shoulders in overhead movements.

And to show you exactly why see the image below. On the left, we have a person with little mobility in the middle of the back. And on the right is a more mobile person in the middle of the back.

Now, when we do a bench press, our arm cannot rise above a point that is approximately at the level of the shoulder blade. So, with a narrow, rounded mid-back, you can see that your shoulder blades can’t move back that far. As a result, your arm will not be able to reach the full range of motion above your head.

This changes if the mid-back can move backward. Mobility gives space for the shoulder blades to support themselves. And that allows your hand to effectively push above your head. The problem comes when you don’t have that mobility in your mid-back and then you try to push up. Finally, you compensate for the loss of range of motion:

An arched turn that causes severe compression and reduced core stability, OR

Creating an inefficient path in a line by moving it forward instead of forward.

These costs can increase the risk of injury. Not to mention, limit the number of weights you can press over your head. And then basically the amount of muscle you can build in the delts.

Reason 2: Lats

Tight lats can limit your ability to press down on your head. It does this by creating downward resistance every time you try to push. Because of this, most of you will likely feel little resistance, even if you just press your hands above your head without a weight. And that’s why many of you arch your back when you try to push up.