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Learning the shoulder overhead press exercise will help you strengthen your shoulders and biceps for strong, beautiful arms!

This upper body exercise is a tried and true strength training move for women over 50 for sculpted shoulders and arms. I recommend starting with lighter weights until you learn the proper range of motion and form.

Then, when you’ve nailed the form, you can slowly add more weight!

How to Perform the Shoulder Overhead Press:

  • Start with feet hip distance apart. Bring elbows out to the side creating a goal post position with arms, dumbbells are at the side of the head, and abdominals are tight.
  • Press dumbbells slowly up until arms are straight. Slowly return to starting position with control. Repeat for desired number of reps.
  • In addition, be sure you are keeping your shoulders down while you push the weights up.

Once you think your form is good, start to add more weight. Eventually, you will want to use enough weight so that by the time you get to your 11th or 12th repetition, you are struggling to push that last time up! It should be hard.

Finding the right weight can be tricky, especially for women. Many women worry that using heavier weights will cause them to bulk up, but that’s not true.

I put together an entire guide on when to increase your weights so you can leave confusion behind and get the best training results possible!

muscle strength vs muscle endurance woman squatting

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Table of Contents

What Muscles Does Shoulder Overhead Press Work?

The shoulder overhead press exercise strengthens and sculpts your shoulder muscles.

Benefits of Shoulder Overhead Press

There are many reasons you should incorporate shoulder overhead press into your workouts. Here are just a few:

Strengthens Shoulders

Shoulder overhead press is a great upper body move! This exercise will strengthen your shoulder muscle focusing especially on the medial deltoid, which is the part of the shoulder that can give it that beautiful shape!

Strengthens Biceps

Part of the pushing motion of the shoulder press involves the biceps as well. Shoulder overhead press does a great job of shaping not only your shoulder but sculpting your entire arm, particularly your biceps.

Strengthens Core

Shoulder overhead press focuses on your shoulders but for proper lifting technique, you need to pull your abs in and tighten your overall core in order to stand tall and steady.

Chris Freytag demonstrating a Shoulder Overhead Press

How Many Calories Does a Shoulder Overhead Press Burn?

People often ask how many calories they are burning in their workouts. Most exercises will generally burn about 100 calories for every 10 minutes you are working at higher intensity.

Bottom line – the harder you work, the more calories you burn. Shoulder overhead press builds muscle in your body, which makes for a better metabolism and higher calorie burn all day long.

Incorporating Shoulder Overhead Press Into Your Workouts

Shoulder overhead press is a great exercise to practice any time on its own. However, you could also incorporate it into other workouts to mix them up.

Here are 3 workouts to sculpt and shape your shoulders and upper body:

Other Exercises Similar to Shoulder Overhead Press

If you like the shoulder overhead press and the results you get from it, here are a few more exercises you might want to try.