A Hidden Cause of Bench Press Shoulder Injuries

Watson Dumbbells

A hidden cause of bench press shoulder injuries is actually a weakness of the long head of the biceps.

The long head of the biceps is stressed more when the elbow joint is behind the upper body as they are when doing incline curls.

If you have strengthened your rotator cuff and external rotators, and have addressed muscle adhesions etc, but still experience some pain in the bench press, then you should check your numbers on incline curls and see if your weights match the norms for your bench.

I hope this quick tip helps.

If you want your programs designed to address your individual needs feel free to reach out. https://www.totalhealthperformance.com.au/onlinecoaching

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Bench Press - Sticking Point Bottom Position

“I’m getting pinned in the bottom position of my bench press. Why is that and what can I do?”

There could be many reasons why you are getting stuck in the bottom position of your bench press. It could be a technical issue such as not keeping the chest up, allowing shoulders to round in bottom position, elbows flaring too much or being tucked too tight, or not having enough involvement from the lats, for example.

It could also be due to a weak muscle group, like the lats (as mentioned above), a weak mid upper back / rear delts / external rotator’s, serratus anterior, or even the pecs.

So, you have to figure out which muscle/muscles are weak and strengthen those through specific assistance exercises.

There are also many techniques you can use to strengthen the bottom part of your bench press.

Exercises/techniques you can use to help the start of your bench press:

• Paused bench presses
• Bench press dead stop from pins
• Functional isometrics
• Spotto press
• Cambered bar bench press or DB work. Extra range of motion

Assistance work to address weakness to help start of bench press:

• Weak lats – pull ups, wide grip pulldowns, straight arm lat pulldowns to thigh
• Weak mid upper back – all forms of rows, single arm, chest supported etc.
• Weak serratus anterior – incline front raises, cable front raises
• Weak pecs (sternal portion) – Dips, decline presses, DB presses

This list is far from complete but it should give you some ideas on how to address your issues.

Example workout – weak pecs and weak lats:

A1 – Dead stop bench press from pins 5 x 3-5, 32X0, 120 rest

A2 – Pull ups 5 x 3-5, 30X2, 120 rest

B1 – Dips 4 x 5-7, 3110, 90 rest

B2 – Single arm DB row neutral grip 4 x 5-7, 3011 90 rest

C1 – Decline DB bench press neutral grip 3 x 7-9, 31X0, 60 rest

C2 – Straight arm lat pulldown to thigh 3 x 7-9, 3210, 60 rest

Related:

Bench press tip - grip width

Bench press tip - elbow position

Bench press - arch or no arch?

Increase overhead strength to improve your bench

Increase Overhead Strength to Improve Your Bench

There has been mass panic about training at the moment due to coronavirus. One of the concerns I am hearing most about is losing strength on the bench press. "I have a bar, some plates, and some dumbbells, so I can't bench, it's gonna go down massively".

You can use this time to work on your overhead strength. This will more than likely help you come back with a better bench then if you just kept hammering away on it at the gym as you normally do.

This is something that Ed Coan has spoken about for a long time. When his bench stalled, he said he would work on behind the neck presses as he felt the weakness in his shoulders were limiting his bench press.

Charles Poliquin said that based on the normative data he collected over the years there was a strong correlation between shoulder pain and a lack of overhead strength. He also explained that training only the bench press pathway often causes the subscapularis muscle to shorten and unbalance the shoulder joint.

Charles would often say that the ability to be able to behind the neck press was a sign of a healthy shoulder. To perform the behind the neck press we start the weight from a deadstop on the traps, using a full range of motion. This is how you would assess your shoulder integrity using that lift, not a little half rep lockout type thing barely reaching the top of your head, that I see in most commercial gyms.

So, spending some time focusing on your overhead strength may also help reduce your risk of injury as you may correct some imbalances that you would not have otherwise addressed.

Overhead presses will also increase the strength of the long head of your triceps which will also help carry over to a stronger bench when you get back to it.

Pair your pressing work with a chin up variation, then move on to some form of row, and external rotator work and you will keep, if not increase, the strength on the bench press. Remember to vary the type of press and chin up every 4 -6 workouts and do the same for your assistance work.

The change will more than likely help you break a few plateaus.

Related:

Bench press tip - grip width

Bench press tip - elbow position

Bench press - arch or no arch?

Bench Press PR - 140kg x 2

Pretty happy with my session today ending my 6th set of bench with 140kg for 2 reps.

My session went like this: 115kg x 4, 120kg x 4, 125kg x 4, 130kg x 4, 135kg x 3, 140kg x 2

I had the goal of benching 140kg for a single back in 2013 and it has taken me this long to achieve. It isn’t because I am lazy, inconsistent, or changed goals, nothing like that. It is simply because I kept getting injured (in league and then jiujitsu) and every time I got close would almost have to start from scratch.

In that time, some of the bigger injuries I had:

* Broke my back (L3 transverse process). Finished the last 20 minutes of the game and played two weeks post doing this.

* Broken wrist

* Broken collar bone (I played the whole season with the broken wrist and collar bone, so that set me back a long way. I spent 12 weeks in a cast post season)

* Tore my pec off the ribs, done my A.C, tore my infrasprinatus, and tore my delt (semi-final, finished the game out after doing it in the first half)

* Tore my pec off the ribs again the following season (finished my career due to this)

* Had 3 screws put in my hand

* Had a few disc bulges flair up

* Tore a right quad muscle off

* Ruptured my top left ab

* Tore my hamstring

* Ruptured my adductor and conjoint tendon

This is on top of an injury list twice as long as this one prior to 2013.

So, while it is far from being a world class bench, I am happy for sticking in there and achieving my goal.

As bad as the injuries have been, they have given me a lot of practical experience about program design, rehab, and technique. Shit you can’t learn from a book. Most people will never experience this type of learning and for our young athletes, and clients, thankfully so.

What are the main reasons for this amount of injuries? I’d say the extreme over training and weaknesses never addressed early in my career. From that, the 30 plus cortisone shots I have had, and then also all the compensations I have made over the years training around and playing with all the injuries.

At the end of the day, what happened, happened. I am just trying to be as good as I can be.

From this, I have learnt many lessons, ones that I can use to help prevent my clients from going through the same types of things, and help them reach their full potential.

You aren’t done until you decide you are.