Weight lifting know-it-alls - I have a question please

I am hoping someone can help me out.  I have been doing shoulder presses with dumbells for the past six weeks.  However, before, I sued to do Arnold presses.  I find that I can do 3 sets of 12 with 20lbs dumbells of the shoulder presses, but Arnold presses are harder.  Can someone tell me the difference between the two?  Thanks!

With Arnold presses there is more movement (turning the weights as you presss upwards) and your muscles have to work harder to maintain good form.  They are awesome though so keep at it.  the real Arnie also recommends front squats....let me tell you they are harder then the regular squats   Hooray for Arnold!!!  I am a bit of a fan if you couldn't tell.

Thanks agana.  Thats what I thought as well.  So I'm assuming that arnold presses are more of a "complete" shoulder exercise than just regular presses.  I think I will switch to Arnold Presses for now.  See how that goes.

I hate front squats. I just hate doing them. >:o

The arnold press involves more of the rotator cuff muscles than the standard dumbbell press, so if you do switch to it remember to start light (lighter than you can DB press) to allow for muscle adaptation.  Generally less weight can be used, since the arnold moves the shoulder through different planes (from front to the side of the body).  I'd say if you are only doing one shoulder exercise, make it a normal press and use good form.

As far as front squats, they isolate the quadriceps more than typical back squats, and so are much harder (not even consider the requirements of flexibility to keep the weight racked on the shoulders).  For an overall workout, back squats (with a shoulder width stance and movement down a bit past parallel) are the better exercise, since you will get more hip/butt/hamstring involvement as compared with the front squat.

Just my $0.02.

That is why I like the front squats though.  I do dead lifts that spank my hams well enough and I get full movement during squats cause I bring it all the way down so my hams touch my calves.   Not to mention you like like a total bada$$ while doing them lol