Taught as Starting Strength’s "throw" — the real hips-first sequence, verified against Rippetoe’s own writing.
The overhead press takes a barbell from your shoulders to a locked-out position directly overhead, standing. This program teaches it the way Mark Rippetoe and Starting Strength teach it: not as a dead-stop strict press, but as what Rippetoe himself calls "a throw" — a press that deliberately uses your hips and legs to help launch the bar, distinct from both a strict press (no hip or leg movement at all) and a push press (a visible knee dip that moves noticeably more weight). Starting Strength's own name for this version is the Olympic press, distinct from a plain, strict military press.
That breath-and-brace step is the Valsalva maneuver — see the bracing and Valsalva maneuver page for what it actually does to stabilize your spine, and a real safety caveat worth knowing if you have high blood pressure or a heart condition.
The hip movement happens first — before you even start to press, not as the bar leaves your shoulders. Push your hips forward and let your torso lean back slightly, using only your hips, never your knees or your lower back. Get into this position before the bar moves: starting with a vertical torso and only leaning back once the bar is already on its way up is the single easiest way to get this wrong. Your knees stay locked the entire time; that is exactly what separates this from a push press, where a visible knee bend does the same job.
The bar needs to travel in a straight vertical line close to your face — aim for your nose on the way up, and again on the way down. Your head does not move to get out of the way; keep your eyes fixed on one point the whole set. What actually clears the path is your torso: leaned back at the start, then driving forward again the instant the bar crosses the top of your forehead, so you move yourself forward under the bar rather than pushing the bar backward around your head. Get this right and the bar, your shoulder joint, and your mid-foot end up in one straight vertical line at lockout — the position that puts zero leverage on your shoulders, back, or legs. The version most people default to instead, without noticing, finishes just in front of the forehead: still a lockout, but a meaningfully worse one.
Finish with your elbows fully locked, your hips back to neutral, and your shoulders shrugged up toward your ears — that last shrug clears more room for the bar overhead, and skipping it is one of the more common reasons this lift causes shoulder irritation over time.
Fault: The knees flex during the hip drive — the same motion a push press uses, done without meaning to.
Fix: Legs stay dead straight through the whole throw, from setup to lockout.
The single most common technique error in this version of the press, by Rippetoe’s own account — easy to drift into without noticing. The fix is a deliberate, repeated cue, every rep. Some knee flex creeping in does not mean the technique is flawed; it means it needs correcting.
Cue: “tight knees”
Fault: The lower back arches to make up range of motion the shoulders cannot reach on their own.
Fix: Ribs stay down, glutes squeezed, torso stacked in a straight line under the bar.
The most commonly reported issue with this lift, and usually not a core-strength problem — more often your shoulders cannot yet reach fully overhead without your lower back compensating. Fixes: a slightly narrower grip, ribs down and glutes squeezed, and dedicated shoulder mobility work if cues alone do not resolve it. A seated, half-kneeling, or dumbbell version is a completely legitimate substitute for a lifter whose own shoulder structure does not suit a standing barbell press.
Cue: “ribs down”
See mobility work for the overhead press lockout for what "dedicated shoulder mobility work" actually means — which joints, why, and the real drills — once the cues above alone don't resolve it.
Two more worth knowing: elbows flaring too wide raises shoulder strain and bends the bar path off a straight line — keep them roughly under your wrists. Missing the shrug at the top leaves your shoulder in a less protected position at exactly the point it is under the most load — finish every rep by actively shrugging up into the bar.
This lift is genuinely harder to bail out of safely than a squat or bench, because it is usually done outside a rack with no safety pins to catch a missed rep. If you stall partway up, lower the bar back down to your shoulders rather than fighting a stuck lockout. If you feel yourself falling backward with the bar overhead, push it forward and step back rather than letting it pull you further off balance.
A successful press session on novice adds the same jump as bench — and it is the one lift that steps its own increment down after its first-ever weight reset. See why the press gets this rule and bench doesn't for the real reasoning. Press alternates with bench across Day A and Day B.
Overhead press by phase: novice adds 5 lb (2.5 kg) most sessions; intermediate adds 2.5 lb (1.25 kg) on Test Day; advanced trains it as a percentage of a training max in five-week blocks. Miss reps two sessions running and it resets to 90% of its last completed weight.