Garbage Exercises: The Devil’s Press

In fitness testing, anything is valid.  Not as true in fitness training.  For example, dodging arrows might be a legitimate test of your reflexes, speed and agility but it is probably not a sustainable training protocol.  Differentiating between testing and training is important. 

These days CrossFit HQ programs 260 workouts per year.  I believe it is the best fitness programming currently available.  But nothing is perfect.  Even the CFHQ programming team occasionally confuses their mission programming tests instead of training.  For example, a half marathon row is a legitimate test of rowing stamina but unless you are training specifically for a full marathon row, it is not a great training strategy.  Not if we’re pursuing broad, generalised fitness.   

Almost any movement can qualify as a fitness test, but not every movement is great for training fitness.  The dumbbell devil’s press has been programmed in competition before and though I do not like the movement, I acknowledge it as a fair test of fitness.  It is not, however, a movement I would ever recommend training if your goal is fitness.  In fact, up until just last week, CrossFit to its credit, had never programmed the devil’s press despite its popularity in the functional fitness space.  Well, when you’re programming 260 workouts per year, there are sure to be a few duds.  Recently the dud count has been higher than usual with the half marathon row, double under crossovers and devil’s press all appearing within a few weeks of each other.

Functional movements are the backbone of CrossFit training.  These are movements that reflect the natural biomechanical movement patterns of the human body: pull up, push up, squat, lunge, etc.  These are movements life requires us to perform whether inside or outside of the gym.  More complex lifts like the snatch or clean & jerk simply describe the most efficient way to take a load from ground to overhead in one or two movements respectively.  In all of these movements we are training ourselves to move loads in the most efficient way possible. 

The dumbbell devil’s press sets us up for failure because it does not reflect how we move loads in the real world.  You would never perform a burpee in order to then lift your suitcase off the ground.  Why not?  Because it would compromise your mechanical set up, limiting the load you could move and placing you at increased risk of injury.  As such, the devil’s press fails the basic, does-this-reflect-reality screening test which should be applied to every movement in order to determine if it is in fact functional.  In fact, the only reason the devil’s press is hard is because it is biomechanically inefficient in the same way that doing a one-legged barbell back squat while holding an egg on a spoon in your mouth would be biomechanically challenging.  Difficult?  Yes.  An effective fitness training movement?  Maybe not.

Mastery of mechanical efficiency will allow you to move heavier loads and higher volumes, faster.  That is the second important trait of functional movements.  Deadlifts allow you to lift big loads, long distances, quickly.  That is described as power.  And power is the independent variable most consistently correlated to all the physiological and neurological benefits associated with exercise.  Being remarkably inefficient, a dumbbell devil’s press does not allow you to move as quickly as a regular, unloaded burpee would, nor does it allow you to lift heavy loads as you could with a snatch or a clean & jerk.  Because of its awkward nature, a devil’s press limits the power you can produce, blunting the fitness effects of the workout and therefore failing the second test that should be applied to every movement to determine whether or not it belongs in your fitness training.   

A burpee belongs in your fitness regimen because of the power produced (your body weight x distance travelled/time).  A Turkish Get Up belongs because despite its very low power output, it trains correct biomechanical movement patterns developing strength, mobility and proprioceptive awareness in the hips and shoulders as well as requiring incredible core stabilization.  The devil’s press fails because it does not strengthen your body through a functional range of motion AND it blunts power production.

I tested the devil’s press in today’s workout because I’ve never tested the single dumbbell version before and because the loading was quite light, minimizing the risk.  As you might expect, it was only half as bad as the double dumbbell version.  But even though it was light enough that I never required a break in the 7 rounds and even though I intentionally moved slowly, careful to use good form, it left me with mild low back stiffness for a couple days afterwards simply because it is impossible to avoid some degree of spinal flexion when lifting from the floor like this.

Some of you will want to test this movement and chase the Rx but though I can’t stop you, I encourage you to consider a more functional alternative so that you can start off the month of September in top form.  Personally, I think the devil’s press is a garbage exercise designed for folks who don’t possess the capacity to differentiate between functional versus nonfunctional movements or the ability to evaluate a movement's efficacy based on power output. 

Monday

Warm Up
2 Rounds (1 min each)
Deadbugs
Windshield Wipers
Glute Raises
Shoulder Pullovers
Bird Dogs
Elevated Rocks
Kickstand Rock
Plank Bird Dogs
Elevated Roll
Handstand Hold

Tech
Devil’s Press
Burpees & DB Snatches

WOD
The F@ck My Low Back Version
7 Rounds
7 Alt. Single DB Devil’s Presses
100m Single DB Carry

A More Sensible Version
7 Rounds
7 Burpees
7 Alt DB Snatches
100m Single DB Carry