🏋️♀️ Overhead Press Form Guide
Build powerful shoulders with safe pressing mechanics.
The overhead press is the most challenging upper-body pressing movement — and the one most likely to cause shoulder injury when performed incorrectly. SportsReflector's AI analyzes your wrist alignment, elbow path, bar path, and lockout to identify your sticking point and protect your shoulders.
Primary Muscles
Anterior deltoid, medial deltoid, triceps brachii
Equipment
Barbell or Dumbbells
AI Score Categories
6 metrics tracked
What AI Analyzes in Your Overhead Press
SportsReflector tracks 6 key metrics to generate your 0–100 form score.
AI Form Score
Every Overhead Press session gets an overall form score plus category-level scoring for each metric above.
4 Overhead Press Mistakes AI Catches
These are the most common Overhead Press form errors — and the ones most likely to cause injury or limit your progress.
Bending the wrists back under load reduces force transfer and risks wrist injury.
Fix: Keep wrists stacked directly over the forearms. Wrap thumbs around the bar. Wrist wraps can help if mobility is limited.
Arching the lower back to get the bar overhead is a compensation for insufficient shoulder mobility.
Fix: Brace the core and squeeze the glutes before pressing. If you can't press overhead without arching, work on shoulder and thoracic mobility first.
Pressing the bar forward instead of straight up increases the moment arm on the shoulder joint.
Fix: Keep the bar over the mid-foot throughout. Move the head back slightly as the bar passes the face, then bring it back under the bar at lockout.
Failing at the same point every set indicates a strength gap in the triceps or anterior deltoid.
Fix: Add pause reps at the sticking point. Strengthen triceps with close-grip bench press and tricep dips. AI analysis identifies the exact angle where the sticking point occurs.
Muscles Worked
Get Your Overhead Press Form Score
Record your Overhead Press on your iPhone and get an instant 0–100 AI form score with specific corrections for every mistake above.
Overhead Press Guides & Deep Dives
Overhead Press Wrist Alignment: Stop Bending Your Wrists and Lift More Weight
Bent wrists during the overhead press waste force, cause wrist pain, and limit how much weight you can press. The fix is simple but requires understanding why the wrist bends in the first place.
Overhead Press Sticking Point: Why You Fail at the Same Spot Every Time
A sticking point in the overhead press is not random — it is diagnostic. The position where you fail tells you exactly which muscle group or technical element needs work. Here is how to read it and fix it.
5 Overhead Press Mistakes That Lead to Shoulder Injury
The overhead press is one of the most effective upper body strength exercises — and one of the most common causes of shoulder impingement and rotator cuff injury when performed incorrectly. AI pose estimation identifies the 5 mechanical errors that predict shoulder injury before pain begins.
Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know about SportsReflector
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