Do you know what's shitty? When you look up a shoulder-press article and the first thing they do is tell you the history of the shoulder-press. I'm not going to do that and the reason I'm not going to do that is because I don't give a shit about the history of the shoulder-press. How peculiar! But. Finding a netspurt, fitness guru or work-out program that doesn't include some form of overhead-pressing is like trying to find a newborn in a retirement village.
Ain't gonna happen, kemosabe.
Truth is, we just love the shoulder-press. It's sold as a man-movement and "back in the day, son..." everybody who was anybody did it and by Joseph, Mary and all the saints, you're going to do it too and there just ain't no two ways about it. Why, even Jesus Christ did a couple've shoulder-press sets just before the bastards nailed him up (and that was after he carried that dang cross halfway across town!).
The whole thing just drips man-movement.
Beat chest here, here and here.
Argh!
Whether you press hands-wide or narrow; feet together or apart; push-press or strict press; standing or seated; with a barbell or dumbbells; in front of the neck or behind the neck, shoulder-press is just a given. You have to shoulder-press. To not shoulder-press is, to most good people, incomprehensible irrespective of the "why". It's like pink: if you're male and you like pink, you take man-stick up the sphincter.
It's just a fact. Mate.
What a load of bollocks!
But shoulder-pressing gives you A) big triceps they say. Don't you want big triceps? Hell yeah, you do. Shoulder-pressing gives you B) big traps, they say. You want those, right? Shoulder-pressing develops C) your deltoids and to not want bigger deltoids means you put perfume on your balls, secretly, in the bewitching hour. Last but by no means least, the act of shoulder-pressing helps develop D) the upper chest.
That's right.
...chesticles.
But wait, there's more: shoulder-press is a compound movement. Let's all sit back and look at that five different ways because as you know, compound movements are the Holy Grail of movements. More than any other movements that ever moved or will again. Then there's this gem: shoulder-pressing will increase your benching numbers. That's right, there's a magical link between the two and if you keep shoulder-pressing till your arms snap...?
Then viola, your benchpress will skyrocket.
Well, let me throw a little water on this bonfire. First things first: you don't have to do ANY exercise you don't want to. This should be obvious to anyone. As for the "why" you would shoulder-press (for triceps or traps, or delts and upper chest), each of these can be developed more effectively individually as opposed to one-movement-that-covers-all-areas and yeah, shoulder-press is a compound movement.
Whoopee shit.
SHOULDER-PRESS BUILDS TRICEPS
It sure can, but it doesn't build them for everyone. Some people who have been shoulder-pressing for years -- including Olympic lifters -- have average to neglible triceps. If you've been shoulder-pressing for tricep development and nothings changed after six months, they ain't working, mate. Wake up and accept it but here's the kicker: benchpress will develop triceps way more than shoulder-press.
As will close-grip benchpress, diamond push-ups, tricep push-downs, overhead dumbbell extensions and myriads of other exercises but if you wanted one, reliable, go-to compound movement to develop triceps, you'd go straight to the benchpress. Benchpress will achieve this for the overwhelming majority of lifters far better, far quicker and far more effectively than any overhead pressing movement will.
SHOULDER-PRESS BUILDS TRAPS
It sure can, but it doesn't build them for everyone. Some people who have been shoulder-pressing for years -- including Olympic lifters -- have average to neglible upper traps. Is this beginning to sound familiar? Shoulder-pressing isn't as effective as bent-over rows are for your traps, folks; neither are as effective as that trap-go-to-movement the shrug.
If you want to specifically target your upper traps, do rows and shrugs but especially shrugs. Sure, there are other movements such as upright-rows that also target the upper traps effectively but that's the point: there actually are other movements that target the traps more effectively than shoulder-press. I don't know any lifters who would recommend shoulder-pressing as the go-to for trap development.
Bodybuilders will recommend shrugs over shoulder-press for trap development any day of the week (and bent-over row variations). Olympic lifters would probably recommend some type of clean but even a lot of today's modern lifters -- the Chinese Olympic lifters are an excellent example for this -- are beginning to incorporate bodybuilding-style isolation movements to bring up lagging body-parts that contribute towards a lift.
SHOULDER-PRESS BUILDS DELTOIDS
It sure can but yep, you guessed it, not for everyone (I'll dispense with the rest of this line as I figure you know where I'm going with this). Look, I'm a classic example: I shoulder-pressed for years and my deltoids didn't do much, apart from get a little sore. Once I started benchpressing regularly though I discovered that benching -- along with rows -- built my deltoids but guess what?
Neither are as effective as lateral raises. If you want to build your deltoids, then target them specifically. If you don't like lateral raises then try upright-rows. I've been as guilty as the next person in proclaiming shoulder-pressing as the only worthwhile exercise you'll need to build serious shoulders but I was wrong. There are other, more specific exercises that do the job better, faster and more efficiently.
SHOULDER-PRESS BUILDS UPPER-CHEST
Shoulder-press can't hold a candle to benchpress or any chest-based, horizontal pressing movement for upper-chest development. One key reason for this is because your chest is, well, in front of your torso and not actually on your shoulders. Tee-hee. Pressing horizontally will obviously hit chest more than pressing vertically and yes, I know this should be obvious, but you might be stupid.
Even push-ups target your chest shitloads better than a shoulder-press ever can or ever will -- that includes upper chest by the way -- so don't even consider doing shoulder-press for that reason. If anything, shoulder-press builds tremendous strength through-out the upper body and particularly across the shoulder girdle region. This is essential for weight-lifters and indeed, is part of most lifting movements for Olympic lifts. That's about it.
SO WHAT DOES SHOULDER-PRESS DO?
Shoulder-press is a fantastic exercise for upper-body strength but whether it's as good-as or better-than the benchpress is an article all of its own (and for somebody else to write, thank-you very much). There's a reason why it used to be the go-to for measuring upper-body strength simply because you had to be strong as fuck to push heavy weight overhead. In today's clime benchpress holds that spotlight though I'm not sure it deserves it.
Shoulder-press is superb for strength reasons (specifically upper-body strength) and as such, is a movement I'd incorporate for over-all athleticism -- not for targeting triceps, traps, deltoids and upper chest. Am I saying you'd get no hypertrophic effect from shoulder-press? I haven't said that at all. But I will say, for the majority of the population, you'll get better hypertrophy through movements specific to the afore-mentioned musculature rather than a one-move-for-them-all approach.
SHOULDER-PRESS vs CHEST
Anyone who regularly shoulder-pressed got stronger at it -- just think of the early strongmen like Eugene Sandow or George Hackenschmidt. But. Getting stronger at vertical pressing didn't build their chests. Their chest don't even compare to today's bodybuilders. Yes, modern Olympic lifters achieve amazing feats of strength (overhead pressing is a key movement of their sport) but again, their chests are average. Even today's powerlifters have average chests.
Shoulder-press is a strength developer thus I absolutely believe that someone with a strong overhead press will have a strong benchpress, but I'm not so sure I believe someone with a strong benchpress will have a strong overhead press, mainly because vertical pressing is harder. However, I have zero evidence for this assumption though I don't think it too far-fetched. What do you think?
For the record, shoulder-pressing didn't transfer across to my benchpress though to be honest, I'm weak and shitty at both; hence I'm spending a lot of time at grooving the movements and experimenting with greater volume/less weight to see if I can make strength gains that way. Possibly I'll always be shitty at both, hopefully I'll improve at both, we'll see. The jury is still out and that's part of the journey too, huh?
CONCLUSION
So do you have to shoulder-press? Absolutely not and if you've been doing so for the sake of building traps, triceps, shoulders or upper chest, I hope I've shown you there are better options for specifically targeting said musculature. Whether you opt to find those out is at your discretion. You do you, kemosabe, you do you. But. If you want to build over-all strength across the upper body you'll be hard-pressed to find a simpler, straight-forward movement for this.
Along those lines, personally I'd choose benchpress over shoulder-press any day but that's just me, as both are great strength-builders for the upper body. I can see how shoulder-press would be advantageous for athletes and/or those strictly after strength gains, but no longer view it as must-do for your average jo. You'll still get strong and you can still throw in shoulder-press every now and again for shits and giggles, but it's not an essential must-have movement.
Personal preference plays a big role here. If you've ever seen youtube clips of bodybuilders doing incline dumbbell shoulder-pressing, you'll appreciate how far the movement has come in terms of comfort -- seated with a padded yet firm back support and dumbbells for a more natural arm position and movement -- and being muscle development focused rather than strength-focused i.e. using lighter to moderate weights with higher volume as opposed to that one, super-human push.
Trust this helps, whanau. Kia ora koutou, lift on.