Steps
- Grab a dumbbell and either sit on a military press bench or a utility bench that has a back support on it as you place the dumbbells upright on top of your thighs or stand up straight.
- Clean the dumbbell up to bring it to shoulder height. The other hand can be kept fully extended to the side, by the waist or grabbing a fixed surface.
- Rotate the wrist so that the palm of your hand is facing forward. This is your starting position.
- As you exhale, push the dumbbell up until your arm is fully extended.
- After a second pause, slowly come down back to the starting position as you inhale.
- Repeat for the recommended amount of repetitions and then switch arms.
Tracking it in OneRep
Add the dumbbell one-arm shoulder press to a routine and your previous weight and reps sit beside every set, so the decision to add load is made by what is already on the screen rather than by memory. Exercise history and volume trends are one tap away, and logging works offline for the gyms where signal does not reach.
Because OneRep tracks food on the same timeline, a stall on this lift can be read against what you were actually eating that month — which is the difference between a programming problem and an eating one. More on that in tracking progressive overload without a spreadsheet.
Where the instructions come from
The steps above come from free-exercise-db, a public-domain exercise dataset. They are general guidance, not coaching for your body: if a movement hurts, stop and get someone qualified to look at it.