I’ve been doing a 3 day programme I’ve sort of constructed myself from pieces of info I’ve found here there and everywhere.
I basically only work my upper body, and I work it 3 days a week and rest on the weekend.
I Bench, Incline Bench, Closed Grip Bench, Upright Row, Bent Row, Clean and Press, Shoulder Press, Shrug, Bicep Curl, Laying Tricep Extensions, Lateral Raises, and unweighted Leg raises.
Its been going fine, and you will see from my photo’s in my profile the dramatic progress this ‘intense’ programme has yielded.
But I work as a warehouse jockey, lifting not to heavy items, and 2 days ago on the day I was due to workout I suddenly got shooting pain in my right shoulder/side of the upper arm.
I found this strange as I had no abnormal pain in the workout.
I didn’t workout that evening, but the pain is still here and comes strangely when I’m not lifting anything heavy, just doing basic movements mainly.
So I would like to know what any of you think.
Should I just carry on? I feel I could and I don’t want to stop and lose my gains, I’ve worked to hard. Any comments or questions would be most appreciated.
Peace
Why? You think that by having strong arms you are going to be able to lift heavy objects, push a broken car, or other man-requiring tasks? I won’t rail you for ignoring the biggest muscles in your body, because others will.
What I want from you:
A front, relaxed shot. How you would normally stand without posing.
A side relaxed shot.
A relaxed back shot.
All shots with no shirt. Make sure I can see your hips too. If your posture sucks then it is very possible.
Try to describe the pain a little more scientifically/anatomically if possible. Also, see an ortho or chiro and tell them the problem with as much detail as possible.
It is probably the upright row. Lay off those and do pullups instead. I had the same problem about a month ago. But it could be any of those exercises. Trial and error.
Another comment-- if you’re doing those exercises you mentioned three times a week you might be over using your rotator cuff since you have just started working out. You should really think about finding a complete workout schedule on here, a book, etc and go by it for awhile.
It will help condition your body for heavy loading in the future. Tendons, ligaments and such grow much much slower than muscles, so its easier to injure them if you don’t train smart.
Also, it is easy to produce a muscular imbalance b/w your chest and back muscles. Which can cause shoulder pain.
*You should really work out your legs and do more compound exercises like pull-ups, squats, etc. But like the other guy said, that is what everyone is going to rail you on.
What you certainly have is very severely internally rotated humeri (arms). Incorporate more pulling/rowing into your routine and less pushing/pressing.
You also have forward head posture. This is exacerbated by the above problem. Strengthen your back. If you do this, your posture may un-fuck itself and hopefully Poona and I are mistaken. Hopefully its just a poor pose or posture. Good luck.
I thought the bent row would train my back. I have looked at training arms and chest one day back and houlders next, legs and abs, la -di-dah, but to be honest my aim was pureley a bigger upper body, then If it worked out i would adjust training to all over.
What can I do for my back? my upper back muscles have developed quite nicely, and I had suffered lower back pain because of my job, but this has seemd to go altogether now since i began lifting.
I train at home, I have a bench, no money, a young son, and a set of dumbells and barbells. what can I keep doing that will not injure me further? thanks for all youre views btw. And its the light my back is straight. Had my girlfriend worried there. My posture probably sucks, a big part of my job is bending over shrink warpping pallets.
Barbell rows are fine, but you still lack vertical pulls, like lat pulldowns or pullups. A pullup bar will cost you 20$ and will be very beneficial. That, or do more barbell rows. Your chest is pulling your shoulders out of place.
Its like you are walking with your knuckles forward. I understand you don’t have much money, and family comes first. Just train smart and be healthy.
You’re doing 4 or 5 pushing movements for every pull. Of course you’re getting rotator cuff problems with that kind of imbalance. Switch to whole body routines.
Squats and upper body horizontal, then Deadlift and upper body vertical is a good choice to iron out imbalances. Dump the upright rows and do high pulls and cleans instead. Always choose compound, multi-joint exercises until you’re too tired to do them with good form.
Then, do your isolation moves if you have the time/energy and feel the need to focus on a specific weakness. Good Luck Man. (I’m dealing with two left shoulder tendon tears and a dead subscapular nerve so I know how you feel!)
Sounds like good advice. Do you know what my biggest worry has been. Its that If I stop doing exactly what Ive set myself then It will all just drop off me. I am highly inexperienced I guess. How long does it take for muscle to break down anyway?!
Should I cut the bench out altogether for a while? I do have a pullup bar somewhere. I could incorporate that I guess. My workouts have been for hytrophy btw, with increased weight every set. Should I go for toning. God so many questions I know theres no definitive answer!
You made good progress, don’t worry about atrophy just yet. You don’t have to drop benching, just reduce it. If your chest stops growing, who cares? If it keeps growing you’ll look more and more like a caveman. Bring up your back.
Lower body lifts are your friend. Don’t avoid it; those lifts require an incredible amount of willpower to execute, you will grow all over.
OK. Just did my workout but with a few changes.
It went in this order follows:
Bench Press
Barbell shrug
Bent Barbell Row
Seated Shoulder Press
Pull ups (hardly any)
Chin ups (again very little)
ATTEMPTED LAYING TRICEPS … and found that as I am placing the barbell back on the bench I have to sit up with arms outstretched and drop the barbell into place (i lay reversed on the bench to allow some space to move), this is when I felt the familiar pain from the other day, although I hadn’t felt it in the previous workout. I immediately switched to standing Tricep extensions, with no problems
Standing Tricep Extensions
ATTEMPTED CLEAN … and found that I felt a sharp pain in the affected area, so decided to abandon.
Barbell Bicep Curl
Leg raises
I think I have discovered the main cause of the injury was sheer stupidity and missuse of equipment, and maybe not a rotator cuff injury caused by overtraining the chest.
BUT still I have cut out 2 other types of Bench press, and the upright row.
Before you can accurately fix anything you have to know what the problem is. Trial and error of limiting or adding 1 or 2 exercises takes time and could worsen the problem as much as it could improve it.
Static assessments from photos and posture is great, but it’s also necessary to know how good your posture is when you’re in motion as well. Look through some of Cressey and Robertson’s stuff and take a few of their quick movement screens, then work from there to fix things up. In the meantime, stick with the general rule: if it hurts, stop doing it.
Just learning about this area in general could at the least give you a better understanding about what could be wrong, and these articles would be a good place to start. Also consider “Neanderthal No More” by Cressey and Robertson.
You might want to try using Dumbbells for your presses. I had bicep tendonitis, and it killed to do bench and incline bench press with a barbell, but then it felt much better with dumbbells. Just my $.02
Just learning about this area in general could at the least give you a better understanding about what could be wrong, and these articles would be a good place to start. Also consider “Neanderthal No More” by Cressey and Robertson.[/quote]
