I've got great love for the barbell military press.
But, like most barbell exercises these days, the stimulus to fatigue ratio is skewed against my favor and my performance on them is comparatively worse than their dumbbell and kettlebell counterparts.
The barbell used to work great for me and it catapulted my gains in my mid-20s when I had lots of time to train and had zero injury history.
At this stage in my training career, getting stronger on my chosen exercises is still critically important.
But, my exercise selection needs to be such that I'm creating high stimulus, allowing myself to progressively overload, yet, without unfavorable fatigue that saps my recovery or ruins my energy levels for all exercises to follow.
I've dealt with enough injuries in the past that it's now quite beneficial for me to work each side of my body independently to prevent similar injuries from creeping up on me again.
That's why I started training with kettlebells in the first place. And it's why I went back to dumbbell bench pressing instead of barbell bench pressing after years of stagnation with the barbell and seeing little chest gains.
Training is one big experiment. Every now and then you have to switch things up to see what works and what doesn't. But everyone's journey will be different.
Like I said, in my early and mid-20s, the barbell was super effective for my training.
Later, after many labrum tears in my hips (at age 27), FAI, hip arthritis, and a nagging shoulder injury, I turned to kettlebells, bodyweight, and dumbbells – and my progress went from previously stalled for years to seeing accelerated new gains, having fun with training again, and – most importantly – feeling energized and mostly pain-free again.
Find what works for you and attack it. Be willing to accept that what works for you now may change in the future.
I still occasionally throw in barbell bench press, military press, and conventional deadlifts into my training from time to time because I've enjoyed them so much throughout my training career. But it's usually just as a one off for old time's sake.
For the most part, I find other exercise variations to be better for me currently.
Pushups, dumbbell bench presses, kettlebell military presses, single leg RDLs, B stance RDLs, kettlebell swings, lunges, Bulgarian split squats, and kettlebell squats all provide me a better stimulus to fatigue ratio (positive for the goal of muscle growth) while also taking much less time to set up, warm up, and ultimately complete which is beneficial for those like me who like to be very time efficient with our training.
These other exercise variations also just feel better for me to do and make me much more excited to train.
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