The number one exercise on my list for improving the press is weighted parallel-bar dips. I had been training for two years before I came across dip bars in a weight room and I began dipping right away. I did so because I had read about Marvin Eder, who was perhaps the strongest bodybuilder ever. He never really received much attention because Hoffman linked him with Weider and since Hoffman controlled both Olympic lifting and bodybuilding, he was basically blackballed in Strength and Health. But Peary Rader at IronMan was much more open-minded and ran articles on him.
His lifts were beyond belief. In the early fifties, long before any type of strength-enhancing drug came along, he did a dip with 434 lbs added to his bodyweight of 198 for a total of 632 pounds, and did seven reps with 400 pounds around his waist. The overhead press was his favorite lift and that’s why he dipped so heavy, to improve the press. And it did just that. He overhead pressed 355 at 198 and could bench press 575 pounds. Only Doug Hepburn, a heavyweight lifter, could handle over 500 in 1953.