zeb, i can at test to that brother (and im only 17!) but i think if you have access to regular ART (once a week) and keep up with rotator cuff and other stabalizer muscles you’ll be alright, i had problems and as long as i keep up with them with art and things like “cracking the rotator cuff connundrum” workout and whatever my chiro tells tme to do (hes a personal trainer/sports rehab guy too) im set
Zeb - and I thought you were just hot on pull ups & chin ups!!! 
Some tremendous ideas here from all you guys, Many thanks for all your inputs.
I am on my second week of no upper body training and expecting to go a further two weeks before returning to some D/B floor presses and bent over rows to chest and see where I go from there. I do lots of retraction work and ext rotation plus 15 mins of stretching a day for chest, lats & upper traps and will continue this.
I think the bench press is almost as an emotional issue as it is a phsyiological one! I have always struggled with it, always been bad at it but never wanted to drop it from my routine…it’s time to ditch the bench press!!!
Maybe we need an “I don’t bench press” forum and an “Injured T-Man” forum for those trying to kick the habit and recover from misuse!
Stay healthy!
P.S. What is ART? We don’t seem to have that in Medeterainian Cyprus! pleanty of sports therapists though…
Very interesting thread here…
Zeb I laughed when I read about the injuries suffered by long time benchers. It reads exactly like something Matt Furey told us at a seminar, how weightlifting takes its toll not right away, but usually a few yrs down the road. By the time you’ve found out, you’ve done a lot of damage. How guys are macho, and lift too much with the wrong technique (everybody on this board prob sees atrocious form on a daily basis in the gym), don’t work stabilizers, don’t stretch, etc. IIRC, Zeb, you’re big on BW exercises, right?
Anyway Patch, just wanted to let you know that you’re not alone. I’ve started lifting again, a month ago, and am easing into it really slow. I just ADMITTED to myself, and it was HARD,that I am an orthopedic mess at 29 yrs old, and that I have to take better care of myself if I want to lift, which I do enjoy. So don’t just “lay off” upper body movements for a while, get them checked because you prob have structural imbalances. Take care of yourself, use perfect technique, start light and build back to big weights, use ice, and stretch after lifting (not before), stretch in the morning, at night, stretch antagonists betw. sets, and investigate trigger point therapy, as suggested.
For technique, if you have access to a competent trainer, hire them to show you what perfect technique is. I don’t know how you would find out if a trainer is competent or not, maybe ask on the board? Or, invest in Stuart mcRobert’s phenomenal book, Handbook of Weight Training technique. It is meticulous in describing every single aspect of a lift, and it covers 30+ exercises. It has more than 10 pages on squats alone!
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and all that!
Oh, and BTW, Furey is NOT a weight-hater like many make him out to be. But he believes that weightlifting is a SKILL that needs to be learned from a competent coach, with a significant investment of time, and not from your buddies in the gym with their M&F routines.
What do you guys think about doing 1 or 2 board bench presses would that make much of a difference.I seems like it would keep the shoulder in a lot better position.
Thanks again for the input!
I actually am a certified strength and conditioning coach - in fact I am an instructor on a certification programme in the UK & Cyprus…sometimes you need advice from other people even though you know what you should do but the old ego gets in the way!
Looking forward to plently more rehab, stretching, ice massage and myotherapy before returning to some light floor presses and rows to chest in a couple of weeks.
And (the original theme of the thread) the three a week leg workouts are going great - putting on size and strength noticably.
Zeb,
I have 2 bad shoulders both are rotator cuff injuries,one has been surgically and the other,I’m working on.Because of the injuries,If I try to get a proper spread(pinky finger on the rings)the pain is excruciating,so I have to make my grip more narrow and consequently stay in the 205 to 230 range.It drives me crazy but on the HammerStrength compound bench I do 310.
Hope this helps you research.
Patch, if you live in Cyprus, go work out with Stuart McRobert! He lives in Nicosia
Yeah, it would be great to meet the great man his own self! I have all his books…
I have experienced the same benching problems. However, I never stuck with it to the point of serious injury.
I find that the incline barbell bench press works great for me. I can go super heavy without experiencing problems. My training program utilizes the Westside principles. The only major modification I made is that I use the Incline Press as my main benching movement, and therefore on DE days, do speed inclines…
EoN
I tranied through. Had pain, kept the training. Duno what the rotator cuff is. If the pain in the anterior deltoid area, predominantly, you got what i had. Go for a quick walk, 5 min. Come home, stretch the shoulder. Also, I’d massage the shoulder. Hard. DId a lot more back work per chest work, as I figure that’d stretch the thing in my workouts as well. Worked for me.
epitome.