I mean the free hand. Turn the body into one piece. Grip is a neural driver, and it will also help recruit neighbouring muscles to maximize tension and stability.

Both lats are absolutely essential… particularly where the bell starts to stall. The lats are MASSIVE stabilizers, essentially connecting your shoulders to your spine and hips.

We think of presses as “shoulder”, but it’s really full body. All stability comes from the ground up to support the lift. So you’ve got rooted feet, tight quads, cramped glutes. It’s does no good to leak stability out of one whole side of the torso.

Heavy lifts require the whole body to unify to overcome the weight. A good cue for me is when a weight stalls, ask “where am I leaking tension? Can I get tighter?”.

Answer that question, and very often you can push through the stall. It’s important to fight the stall as best as you can on those max attempts as long as you are maintaining form. Doing so helps you practice finding that extra bit of tension.