Shoulder injury from benching?

[Tyr0331]

Wanted to see if anyone has had any issues with shoulder pain bench pressing. If so, how did you deal with it? Trying to finish off my base building phase, but pain hasn't gone away in last few weeks so thinking of finishing off with floor press. Max percentages would be off, but it only hurts when I bench..

[Barkadion]

Shoulder is very complex part of the body. So much can go wrong. Whole upper body (back and front) is involved in benching. Don't mess with it. Don't try to work around it on your own. Get professional opinion. It can be MD, PT, and coach who works with injured athletes.

I f***d my shoulder by ignoring pain signals and pushing trough it by playing with grip, incline benching, floor pressing.. It didn't help. I took a short break (1-2 weeks). I didn't let it heal properly and I got back to the training as soon as I feel relieve from the pain. I aggravated the injury and ended up with nerve impingement and muscle atrophy. I was forced to go for the medical exam. There was no other way around. So, I put myself into long and painful recovery: 1 year off the training + 1 year of rehab. I still have muscle/strength imbalance and issues with my post-injury side (weakness, numbness, lack of ROM to name a few). All the soft tissues and cartilages don't recover well after 40s.

You mentioned that pain doesn't go away for a few weeks. That is not good. Be smart. Get professional opinion and help. Take care of the issue first. Take a step back. You have all your life to get stronger. Do it safely.

[Mindboozer]

Barkadion is right about seeking professional help if there is significant pain. At the very least a physio will be able to diagnose the issue and set you on a path to addressing it.

I would also suggest reading up on articles by Eric Cressey. He's definitely one of the top shoulder guys. http://ericcressey.com/shoulder-hurts-start-here, https://www.t-nation.com/training/shoulder-savers-1.

[Tyr0331]

Shoulder is very complex part of the body. So much can go wrong. Whole upper body (back and front) is involved in benching. Don't mess with it. Don't try to work around it on your own. Get professional opinion. It can be MD, PT, and coach who works with injured athletes.

I f***d my shoulder by ignoring pain signals and pushing trough it by playing with grip, incline benching, floor pressing.. It didn't help. I took a short break (1-2 weeks). I didn't let it heal properly and I got back to the training as soon as I feel relieve from the pain. I aggravated the injury and ended up with nerve impingement and muscle atrophy. I was forced to go for the medical exam. There was no other way around. So, I put myself into long and painful recovery: 1 year off the training + 1 year of rehab. I still have muscle/strength imbalance and issues with my post-injury side (weakness, numbness, lack of ROM to name a few). All the soft tissues and cartilages don't recover well after 40s.

You mentioned that pain doesn't go away for a few weeks. That is not good. Be smart. Get professional opinion and help. Take care of the issue first. Take a step back. You have all your life to get stronger. Do it safely.

I went to the doctor and he took was X-rays. Said it's my ac joint being impinged. I just don't typically believe doctors unless it's out of my control. And not sure why he wouldn't want to do an MRI. Offered a cortisone shot I didn't take it. So would you recommend starting a new cluster of lifts and finish the BB phase? Was going to try some other kind of press see if it still hurts. Doesn't hurt full two weeks just when I'm actually benching.

[Tyr0331]

Shoulder is very complex part of the body. So much can go wrong. Whole upper body (back and front) is involved in benching. Don't mess with it. Don't try to work around it on your own. Get professional opinion. It can be MD, PT, and coach who works with injured athletes.

I f***d my shoulder by ignoring pain signals and pushing trough it by playing with grip, incline benching, floor pressing.. It didn't help. I took a short break (1-2 weeks). I didn't let it heal properly and I got back to the training as soon as I feel relieve from the pain. I aggravated the injury and ended up with nerve impingement and muscle atrophy. I was forced to go for the medical exam. There was no other way around. So, I put myself into long and painful recovery: 1 year off the training + 1 year of rehab. I still have muscle/strength imbalance and issues with my post-injury side (weakness, numbness, lack of ROM to name a few). All the soft tissues and cartilages don't recover well after 40s.

You mentioned that pain doesn't go away for a few weeks. That is not good. Be smart. Get professional opinion and help. Take care of the issue first. Take a step back. You have all your life to get stronger. Do it safely.

I went to the doctor and he took was X-rays. Said it's my ac joint being impinged. I just don't typically believe doctors unless it's out of my control. And not sure why he wouldn't want to do an MRI. Offered a cortisone shot I didn't take it. Says good news is it won't get worse but also can't get better and I've heard that multiple times in my life with other injuries.

So would you recommend starting a new cluster of lifts and finish the BB phase? Was going to try some other kind of press see if it still hurts. Doesn't hurt full two weeks just when I'm actually benching.

[Tyr0331]

All this started around week five so I was hoping I could work through it and finish BB. Im taking a week off anyways before starting the continuation blocks. I have one more week with BB on the powerlift cluster. The plan was to throw out benching on the continuation clusters and starting hitting a few oly lifts instead of powerlifts.

[Barkadion]

Shoulder is very complex part of the body. So much can go wrong. Whole upper body (back and front) is involved in benching. Don't mess with it. Don't try to work around it on your own. Get professional opinion. It can be MD, PT, and coach who works with injured athletes.

I f***d my shoulder by ignoring pain signals and pushing trough it by playing with grip, incline benching, floor pressing.. It didn't help. I took a short break (1-2 weeks). I didn't let it heal properly and I got back to the training as soon as I feel relieve from the pain. I aggravated the injury and ended up with nerve impingement and muscle atrophy. I was forced to go for the medical exam. There was no other way around. So, I put myself into long and painful recovery: 1 year off the training + 1 year of rehab. I still have muscle/strength imbalance and issues with my post-injury side (weakness, numbness, lack of ROM to name a few). All the soft tissues and cartilages don't recover well after 40s.

You mentioned that pain doesn't go away for a few weeks. That is not good. Be smart. Get professional opinion and help. Take care of the issue first. Take a step back. You have all your life to get stronger. Do it safely.

I went to the doctor and he took was X-rays. Said it's my ac joint being impinged. I just don't typically believe doctors unless it's out of my control. And not sure why he wouldn't want to do an MRI. Offered a cortisone shot I didn't take it. So would you recommend starting a new cluster of lifts and finish the BB phase? Was going to try some other kind of press see if it still hurts. Doesn't hurt full two weeks just when I'm actually benching.

Yeah, that's what typical Doc would do. Cortisone kills the inflammation and it masks the real symptoms. So, you can train thinking you are healed and it might harm you even more.

I would get copies the medical exam documents and take it to someone else. "Impingement" is a very broad term and it could be related to several different things. I would look for a professional who works with injured athletes. It could be something like sport medicine clinic or just good PT place. It is not easy to find, but it is doable. I emailed to Eric Cressey at some point and he referred me to great PT guy who is lifter himself and who went trough injuries.

Where are you located? You can shoot me PM if you are in states. I can ask around if there is good known professional in your area. I can't promise anything but I can try.

Also, I have heard good feedbacks about Clinical Athlete. I think they have a network around the globe..

http://www.clinicalathlete.com/

As for advise... I wouldn't train trough shoulder impingement. Period. But that's me.

Good luck, mate!

[TBPenguin]

Get your shoulder fixed. Lay off benching, don't wait to finish block. The potential gains of another week are trivial, but the potential damage is not. Doing Oly lifts with a shoulder injury is asking for trouble. If you can do overhead presses (barbell or single dumbbell) that might be the least risky upper lift.

[Tyr0331]

Thanks for the input guys. Transitioned to some plyometrics work for upper body today to finish off the block.

Barkadion PM'd and I'll check out clinical athlete. Also taking a month off BJJ right now, not by choice but maybe that will give time for shoulder to heal.

[Jefferson]

I've had multiple shoulder injuries from BJJ, climbing, bench press etc. I'm not at 100% but I'm getting there. A few ideas that have helped me.

1. Improve posture during the day. Switched to a stand up desk and use it for portions of the day. Make sure sleeping posture is good too. Use extra pillows if needed to put the shoulders and neck in a good position.

2. Hang from a pull-up bar according to the Dr. Kirschman protocol daily. Basically dead hang for 30 seconds at a time stretching all the junk in the shoulder girdle. Accumulate several minutes. This is like magic, but it's so simple and boring nobody wants to do it.

3. Pavel's simple and sinister. Swings and TGU helped retrain my upper back and shoulders to work together in different ranges of motion.

4. Bench press less. Practice push-ups, ring push ups and other movements that force the use of the upper back with arms perpendicular to the body. Crawling, downward dog, push up+,