For as long as I can remember the BTN press has been vilified as a shoulder destroyer, to such an extent in fact that I myself was scared to do it for many years. But the outdated knowledge that this antiquated yet persistent fear mongering was founded upon has in recent years started to receive some pushback in the fitness industry.

Emerging theories of adaptation, injury, and injury risk reduction have shown that things inside the body are never so simple as "if you do this exercise then you're going to snap your shit up." There is far more nuance involved than that, and oftentimes it's actually the things with the highest relative risk that stand to give us the greatest rewards. If we play our cards carefully and correctly then we can minimize those risks while maximizing the returns.

It's the hair of the dog that bit you.

If the behind the neck press poses a relatively higher risk for inciting shoulder injury, then it would also stand to reason that those who can figure out how to become the master of it will have mostly inoculated their shoulders from the injury risk present during almost any other shoulder intensive activity. To achieve this inoculation effect one simply needs to approach the movement with an intelligent plan in order to slowly create the desired adaptations, while adhering to this plan diligently and patiently.

There will be a time when you can press weights off the back of your shoulders with a reckless abandon, but you first have to earn the right to get to that point by putting in the work. Start very light, focus on rep quality, and build the weights and intensities very slowly. Start lighter than you think you need to, and build the training weights slower than you think you need to.

When you take this approach the long term benefits of the BTN press can be very profound. So don't be scared of this movement. Just approach it sensibly, prepare your body for it accordingly, and you will be able to reap the strength and bulletproofing rewards this wrongly vilified, classic exercise has to offer. 

At the start of the BTN press the shoulders are in a position of deep extension, adduction, and external rotation. There is a lot going on here and this is a position of pretty poor leverage for force production. In order to lock the bar out overhead one needs to be able to produce enough force from this compromised position in order to achieve the bar speed required to break the sticking point roughly 1/3 to 1/2 of the way through the press.

As you gain tolerance, skill, and strength in this compromised position your shoulders are going to become insanely fucking strong. A good goal to aim for initially, once you are acclimated to the movement and able to train it heavy, is to be able to lift 85% of your best strict overhead press from the front, but from behind the neck instead.

If you can accomplish this goal then it would be a good idea to go back to pressing from the front of the shoulders again as you probably have some unrealized gains to make there. Sort of like how the back squat and the front squat complement each other, the front overhead press and behind the neck overhead press complement each other as well. Each drives the other up, but if you aren't doing both then you are very much in fact missing a piece of the puzzle.

I think you will also find that as you gain tolerance, skill, and strength at pressing from behind the shoulders that that a more well rounded shoulder strength becomes noticeable during other activities as well, not just when pressing heavy weights in the gym, but also in real life. Your shoulders will be more supple and mobile in general and you won't be scared to push or pull against things from otherwise compromised positions that may have scared you in the past. You will run into less instances of various lifts or miscellaneous activities being painful or bothersome to your shoulders, and they'll just be way stronger and more resilient than they were before in terms of global capacity.

So there ya go! The 3 top reasons why you should embrace the behind the neck press: capped delts, bulletproof shoulders, and insane shoulder strength! Plus, pressing people's max squat off the back of your shoulders is just plain badass! So if you haven't started including the BTN press in your training what the heck are you waiting for? Keep training hard. I will catch you guys next time!