Don’t lie, you all wish you could carry a big ass rocket launcher on your shoulder too. Well good news, with the Arnold Press you’ll be “John Matrix-ing” shit in no time. Ok so that’s obviously a slight exaggeration, deal with it. The Arnold Press is a variation of a basic shoulder or military press, it was indeed created by the Governator himself and is a favorite of many personal trainers. I myself use the Arnold Press, but I usually only do shoulders once a week, so I don’t get to do it too often. Either way let’s get into it….

 You can do this either sitting or standing, it doesn’t really make a difference, except I’d say it’s more difficult and forces you to balance the weight a little better when you’re standing.

Grab two dumbbells and bring them both up like you are at the top of a bicep curl, this is your starting position. From here you are going to simultaneously press the dumbbells above your head and rotate your hands outward so that by the time you get to the top of your press, your palms will be facing away from your body. On the way down, rotate your hands back inward so that the weights return to their starting positions, then repeat. Just a side note, don’t lock out your arms when you reach the rop of your press, leave a little bend in the elbow.

So how is this different than your average shoulder press? Answer, range of motion. By both starting the weights in a lower position and rotating on the way up, you are really hitting a lot more of your seldom used shoulder muscles than you would with a static straight up and down motion, which helps build up your entire shoulder. This is just a great way to improve overall shoulder strength and definition and you can go around telling everyone that you do the “Ahhnold Press” and I mean that just sounds cool.