Floor Presses

Lol

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If anyone here has any experience with floor presses I'd appreciate your thoughts and experiences.

I'm thinking of doing them in place of regular bench for a while. I'd like to learn how to do them well so I can use heavyish loads. I'm hoping that they will be a bit kinder on my shoulders than regular bench.
 
I've been considering these as well... however, haven't done them since I was 14. I imagine you could do them in a rack with the hooks set low enough.

Anyone?
 
You could just do board presses or partial ROM bench press. I never tried floor presses.
 
You could just do board presses or partial ROM bench press. I never tried floor presses.

One of the good things about floor presses is that you have such a stable base for your scapulae; there's no chance of any imbalance, which has got to be good for shoulder stability.

I've been thinking about getting rid of my rack and getting some squat stands instead as they take up much less space and can be moved out of the way easily. It's all because my 6' York bar has bent and I can't find a replacement that's going to be any tougher. If I get a better 7' bar, I don't have enough space to use it safely across the width of the room as the room is only about 7' 6" wide. It's too likely that I'll bash the walls and the bar up. If I turn 90º then 7' 6" doesn't give me enough room to bail out safely should I need to dive out from under a bar.

The other option is that I convert my basement into a gym as that would give me a lot more space; but that will require a lot of work lowering the floor as there isn't enough ceiling height to lift a bar overhead, which sort of defeats the object of weightlifting. I was planning on a funky cinema room but maybe a gym would be better use of the space? Heck, maybe I just need to combine the two? Now there's a thought. :)
 
One of the good things about floor presses is that you have such a stable base for your scapulae; there's no chance of any imbalance, which has got to be good for shoulder stability.

I've been thinking about getting rid of my rack and getting some squat stands instead as they take up much less space and can be moved out of the way easily. It's all because my 6' York bar has bent and I can't find a replacement that's going to be any tougher. If I get a better 7' bar, I don't have enough space to use it safely across the width of the room as the room is only about 7' 6" wide. It's too likely that I'll bash the walls and the bar up. If I turn 90º then 7' 6" doesn't give me enough room to bail out safely should I need to dive out from under a bar.

The other option is that I convert my basement into a gym as that would give me a lot more space; but that will require a lot of work lowering the floor as there isn't enough ceiling height to lift a bar overhead, which sort of defeats the object of weightlifting. I was planning on a funky cinema room but maybe a gym would be better use of the space? Heck, maybe I just need to combine the two? Now there's a thought. :)

Lol,

Although I can see were you could get stronger with floor presses...I would think this is a poor chest exercise due to the ROM being primarily for triceps?
 
Lol,

Although I can see were you could get stronger with floor presses...I would think this is a poor chest exercise due to the ROM being primarily for triceps?

Due to my left shoulder/clavicle injury, reduced ROM was just what I wanted so floor presses seemed to be an answer. In actual fact, if I do my regular bench set-up with a good arch, my ROM is only slightly more than when I floor press.

They are a bit more awkward to perform than regular benching and definitely remove much of the stretch reflex that you get with regular benching, but I can't say that I've noticed any apparent pec shrinkage—trust me, I would notice, as my pecs are one of my weakest points!

I definitely get sore upper and lower-pecs the day after floor pressing so, for me at least and for the time being, it seems to be a good bench-substitute. I'd definitely recommend it as a good movement to use in the event that you don't have access to a bench or a rack, but you do have a bar and full-size plates.
 
I was planning on a funky cinema room but maybe a gym would be better use of the space? Heck, maybe I just need to combine the two? Now there's a thought.
Hell no don’t combine them, make the living room the cinema and the master bedroom the weight room that’s how I worked it out but then there’s no Mrs. Grunt to contend with. Never paid attention to whether there’s a Mrs. lol. ;)
 
Hell no don’t combine them, make the living room the cinema and the master bedroom the weight room that’s how I worked it out but then there’s no Mrs. Grunt to contend with. Never paid attention to whether there’s a Mrs. lol. ;)

Haha. Ah, well, the thing is, I'm not planning on staying in my present place for that much longer so I'm thinking of saleability too. The basement seems ideal for a gym because of the potential for a solid floor—nearly all the other rooms have joisted wooden floors which aren't strong enough to deal with heavy weights without major reinforcement. However, the ceiling isn't high enough to do overhead pressing which means digging out the floor. My original plan was for a cinema room as the low ceiling height isn't an issue for that. I still haven't decided what to do and I have plenty of other work to be getting on with.

Meanwhile, I have moved a few things around in my weight room so I can use my 7' bar without having to get rid of my rack. It doesn't leave a lot of room for error but it is ok. I had to dump the bar with 105kg C&J the other night So, it looks like I'll be getting a pukka Pendlay weightlifting bar and some more bumpers to replace my existing ones that are breaking up.
 
Hell no don’t combine them, make the living room the cinema and the master bedroom the weight room that’s how I worked it out but then there’s no Mrs. Grunt to contend with. Never paid attention to whether there’s a Mrs. lol. ;)

"The Mrs." household "decorating" plans > kids > my plans for an in-home gym

For now, our basement is basically designated as the kids "rec and wreck" room. Course, my wife might decide something else for that basement one day :eek:) The garage, on the other hand, is my domain!!! Sure it's not heated or air conditioned and it smells funky (especially when the garbage cans are full), but it does have a concrete slab floor and decent overhead height. That's probably my only semi-realistic option for a home gym one day.
 
"The Mrs." household "decorating" plans > kids > my plans for an in-home gym

For now, our basement is basically designated as the kids "rec and wreck" room. Course, my wife might decide something else for that basement one day :eek:) The garage, on the other hand, is my domain!!! Sure it's not heated or air conditioned and it smells funky (especially when the garbage cans are full), but it does have a concrete slab floor and decent overhead height. That's probably my only semi-realistic option for a home gym one day.

If you’re not averse to working out the cold or humidity (Sorry D.C. just sucks, lived in Virginia for while) and you have a yard (probably not in D.C.) you could get a shed or maybe add a room. All I can say is that in 3 years I’ve already saved money on a gym membership by having a setup at home. I save a huge amount of time not travelling to and from a gym even if it was in line with work. It allows me to play around experimenting with all sorts of protocols like multiple daily workouts, especially productive have been doing mini-workouts of say 20 minutes by just knocking out a couple of exercises and them come back later to finish.

Best of all no people doing upright rows in the squat rack or curling on the deadlift platform, or worse someone telling me I can’t drop the weight after a lift or even deadlift at all. The few machines I might ever want to use are simply not worth a gym membership. Hell most gyms don’t even have a glute-ham-raise or reverse-hyper machine anyway. I can use bands for doing flyes if they ever interest me. I can hook my heavy bag up in my power rack for some upper body work, someday I’ll get off my lazy backside and put a hook in one of the ceiling joists to I can leave it hanging permanently.

Overall I like this setup because it plays to my minimalist/utilitarian nature. I figured out a long time ago we waste way too much time in our lives doing needless things. Going to the barber shop for instance, just slap on a #2 guide and shear my own hair, saves time and money. Plus the added bonus is people think I haven’t aged since keeping it short hides most thinning and greying. My coworkers try to make fun of me for not changing my own oil (I’m an aircraft mechanic BTW) but for $300 the dealer is doing it plus all other basic maintenance for 5 years, so I drop off my car and go jogging, surf the internet watch a movie/TV show while someone else does it. Hell I don’t even own a dresser. All you need is to keep the clean stuff separate from the dirty stuff which is what the clean pile and dirty pile are for (to save time the clean pile resides in the dryer, or in the basket next to it if I need it before it’s empty, while the dirty pile is in the washer) (did I mention there’s no Mrs. Grunt ;) ). Anyway I strive to minimize my time being taken up by mundane things so I can do the things I enjoy and not what societal conventions dictate I “must” do.
 
Overall I like this setup because it plays to my minimalist/utilitarian nature. I figured out a long time ago we waste way too much time in our lives doing needless things. Going to the barber shop for instance, just slap on a #2 guide and shear my own hair, saves time and money. Plus the added bonus is people think I haven’t aged since keeping it short hides most thinning and greying. My coworkers try to make fun of me for not changing my own oil (I’m an aircraft mechanic BTW) but for $300 the dealer is doing it plus all other basic maintenance for 5 years, so I drop off my car and go jogging, surf the internet watch a movie/TV show while someone else does it. Hell I don’t even own a dresser. All you need is to keep the clean stuff separate from the dirty stuff which is what the clean pile and dirty pile are for (to save time the clean pile resides in the dryer, or in the basket next to it if I need it before it’s empty, while the dirty pile is in the washer) (did I mention there’s no Mrs. Grunt ;) ). Anyway I strive to minimize my time being taken up by mundane things so I can do the things I enjoy and not what societal conventions dictate I “must” do.

Haha. Maybe we should start a "Minimalist" thread to collect all the great cost and time-saving ideas different folks use? Every minute not wasted is a minute that can be used more productively (training or whatever) or in some more pleasant way (training or whatever ;) ).

I'm with you on the gym front. I easily save over an hour a week not having to travel to a gym and back. I can train whenever I have time for it; I can practice Oly lifts without looking like a chump; I can slam bars, use as much chalk as I like and play my own music. It all adds up very nicely.

I'm with you on the hair and car-maintenance too: over the years I've saved a small fortune on haircuts and I've had to spend very little time getting black grease off my hands!
 
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