Chest Exercises to Avoid Pec Strain

So I have been lifting for quite some time and over the years I suffered a few pec major strains at the point of insertion into the arm. Once I hit a certain weight I always seem to get a pinching feeling in the armpit. Anyways, the doctors have always chalked it up to being a pec strain at the point of insertion into the arm or tendonitis. MRIs have not found any injury.

I am wondering what exercises can I do that will build a full, strong looking chest but will not continue to strain my pec major. Should I be hitting a much higher rep range? Should I focus on machines? Should I drop doing incline barbell and regular barbell bench press? Is there a chest movement that does not put too much strain on my trouble area?

Currently, I just finished a 6 month period of ws4sb and experienced tremendous results. Now I am starting BLAB (built like a badass) and when I finish I will likely go back to ws4sb. I enjoy Defrancoâ??s programs.

Any advice is much appreciated.

what do you usuaully do that has caused the strain before?

Unless your causing joint damage or working out in extreme ROM it’s sometimes better to do the exercise more rather than avoid it. Some pains you just have to work through.

Check your frequency, if it’s once a week or less you may need to warm up more. If you feel like it’s an overuse injury, 3 heavy times a week or so you may want to lessen the volume of each workout or lessen the number of workouts all together. Last but not least I think Scott has an article about putting another exercise first. Such as fly’s or inclines, to get blood flowing to the area first. In a way that’s sort of another warm up.

[quote]bignate wrote:
what do you usuaully do that has caused the strain before?
[/quote]

Barbell movements, especially flat movements are the worst offenders. But even DBs can cause some issues. For instance if I try to incline 90 or more lb DBs I start to feel the pinch in the armpit area.

[quote]lostindc wrote:

[quote]bignate wrote:
what do you usuaully do that has caused the strain before?
[/quote]

Barbell movements, especially flat movements are the worst offenders. But even DBs can cause some issues. For instance if I try to incline 90 or more lb DBs I start to feel the pinch in the armpit area.

[/quote]

hows your head positioning during presses? Are your shoulder blades retracted, lats tight? Does a neutral grip hurt? Does incline barbell or flat hurt more than db’s? Whats your volume/frequency.
hows your back work look? Is it up to par or even surpassed your pressing?

[quote]Airtruth wrote:
Unless your causing joint damage or working out in extreme ROM it’s sometimes better to do the exercise more rather than avoid it. Some pains you just have to work through.

Check your frequency, if it’s once a week or less you may need to warm up more. If you feel like it’s an overuse injury, 3 heavy times a week or so you may want to lessen the volume of each workout or lessen the number of workouts all together. Last but not least I think Scott has an article about putting another exercise first. Such as fly’s or inclines, to get blood flowing to the area first. In a way that’s sort of another warm up.

[/quote]

This is the philosophy I have been applying. Often times, I will take 2 weeks off chest and work my way back up and after a while the issue sort of takes a backseat with a partial remission. I do think I need to do something else to get blood flowing to the site. I will check out the article.

http://www.T-Nation.com/free_online_article/most_recent/chest_obliteration_mountain_dog_style
I found some very useful tips from this article I think might help you.

To OP
please post what you currently do
e.i. do you have a deload period? full rom? extreme rom? partials? lower body work? back work? frequency? volume? how have you recovered from rehab? did you go to rehab? are you doing any prehab?

Please feel free to post your current program it will be of major help to those offering help

OP, I have a feeling if you stick with barbells, and do them strict Powerlifter form, all of your problems will go away.

I have a torn bicep tendon(which is in the armpit area), and it sounds like that may be what your aggravation is form.

I can ONLY do Flat Barbell Bench, Wide Grip, Powerlifter Form(arched back,touching bottom of chest), tucking my elbows in as hard as I can without having pain.

Incline Dumbbell is the same for me, I have to stick with weight that I can get for 8-12 reps, otherwise if I try to go heavier, it starts to hurt a lot.

Flat barbell bench has been the only thing that hasn’t aggravated it. Decline barbell,incline barbell,flat dumbbell bench,flies; everything has made my torn tendon worse - but the PL style BB Bench on Flat has worked.

Give it a try?

[quote]bignate wrote:

[quote]lostindc wrote:

[quote]bignate wrote:
what do you usuaully do that has caused the strain before?
[/quote]

Barbell movements, especially flat movements are the worst offenders. But even DBs can cause some issues. For instance if I try to incline 90 or more lb DBs I start to feel the pinch in the armpit area.

[/quote]

hows your head positioning during presses? Are your shoulder blades retracted, lats tight? Does a neutral grip hurt? Does incline barbell or flat hurt more than db’s? Whats your volume/frequency.
hows your back work look? Is it up to par or even surpassed your pressing? [/quote]

head position is on the bench the vast majority of the time. Shoulders are barely retracted, lats are not so tight, and neutral grip makes little difference. BBs hurt just slightly more than dbs. As for volume/frequency in terms of chest I do ws4sb so on Mondays I do incline bb press working my way up to a max 3-5 rep set which is around 245 for 5x. Then I do incline DBs for two sets of 15-20 reps. On Fridays I do flat bench and work my way up to a max 3-5 rep set which is around 285 3-5x. It usually takes me about 3 light warm up sets and 3 building sets to get to the final max rep sets.

Reading your questions I am beginning to believe I have a terrible form problem in terms of retracting blades and tightening lats.

You need to grind your back deep into the bench,retract the shoulder blades,possibly try a wider grip,with a heavy tuck as you descend and continue benching. Your feet should be stapled into the floor, and you should have a damn good arch.

If you lower you range of motion,and keep more of the pressure on your triceps,and stay arched+tight, I have a feeling you will not feel anymore pain.You may also have to drop the incline barbell for a while, and stick with only flat.

Look up Dave Tates “So you think you can bench” series? It may be a godsend for your issues

[quote]young n wrote:
To OP
please post what you currently do
e.i. do you have a deload period? full rom? extreme rom? partials? lower body work? back work? frequency? volume? how have you recovered from rehab? did you go to rehab? are you doing any prehab?

Please feel free to post your current program it will be of major help to those offering help[/quote]

I deload roughly ever 6 or 8 weeks and take off a week every 3 months. My routine is the exact template of ws4sb (defranco’s program). I do a max effort upper body day on Monday, Wednesday a max effort lower body day, and Thursday a repetition upper body. Then I hammer my lower body doing muay thai roughly once a week.

Mondays:
Incline bench: work up to max 3-5 reps
incline dbs: 2 sets of 15-20 reps
BB Rows: 3 sets of 8-12 reps superset with rear delt flyes
BB Shrugs 2 sets of 15
DB Curls 3 sets 8-15

Wednesday:
Deadlifts (often times stiff legged) work up to 3-5 reps working set
Walking Lunges 3 sets
Seated Leg Curls 3 sets 8-15 reps

Friday:
Flat BB Bench: 3 sets of 8-12 reps or work way up to max 3-5 rep working set
Lat Pulldowns superset with seated DB power cleans: 3 sets of 8-12 reps
Standing BB Military Press: 3 sets of 5-8 reps
Rope Tricep Pulldowns: 3 sets 15-20 reps
Wrist Roller: 3 sets

The majority of exercises get full range of motion except chest pressing exercises where I stop when I am parallel with the floor. I have done rehab on the pec and the pain has gone away until I start moving up in weight and hitting a certain weight point. I am stretching, heating, warming up etc. Reading some of the other posts maybe form is an issue.

Right now I am rather skinny at 6’3" and 185 lbs. I keep it light and function for appearance but also performance in other sporting aspect.

[quote]JoabSonOfZeruiah wrote:
http://www.T-Nation.com/free_online_article/most_recent/chest_obliteration_mountain_dog_style
I found some very useful tips from this article I think might help you.[/quote]

reading now thank you

[quote]Ethan7X wrote:
You need to grind your back deep into the bench,retract the shoulder blades,possibly try a wider grip,with a heavy tuck as you descend and continue benching. Your feet should be stapled into the floor, and you should have a damn good arch.

If you lower you range of motion,and keep more of the pressure on your triceps,and stay arched+tight, I have a feeling you will not feel anymore pain.You may also have to drop the incline barbell for a while, and stick with only flat.

Look up Dave Tates “So you think you can bench” series? It may be a godsend for your issues[/quote]

I have a feeling this may be the long term solution. I will have to start from scratch and see if this does anything for me. Swap out incline for flat. Thanks for the heads up. When I read your post I knew immediately that your method is likely much more function then my current method. Thanks

[quote]lostindc wrote:

[quote]Ethan7X wrote:
You need to grind your back deep into the bench,retract the shoulder blades,possibly try a wider grip,with a heavy tuck as you descend and continue benching. Your feet should be stapled into the floor, and you should have a damn good arch.

If you lower you range of motion,and keep more of the pressure on your triceps,and stay arched+tight, I have a feeling you will not feel anymore pain.You may also have to drop the incline barbell for a while, and stick with only flat.

Look up Dave Tates “So you think you can bench” series? It may be a godsend for your issues[/quote]

I have a feeling this may be the long term solution. I will have to start from scratch and see if this does anything for me. Swap out incline for flat. Thanks for the heads up. When I read your post I knew immediately that your method is likely much more function then my current method. Thanks[/quote]

yeah from the last response to my post and this post, you need to learn how to bench properly. Sounds like that will solve ur problems.

[quote]bignate wrote:

[quote]lostindc wrote:

[quote]Ethan7X wrote:
You need to grind your back deep into the bench,retract the shoulder blades,possibly try a wider grip,with a heavy tuck as you descend and continue benching. Your feet should be stapled into the floor, and you should have a damn good arch.

If you lower you range of motion,and keep more of the pressure on your triceps,and stay arched+tight, I have a feeling you will not feel anymore pain.You may also have to drop the incline barbell for a while, and stick with only flat.

Look up Dave Tates “So you think you can bench” series? It may be a godsend for your issues[/quote]

I have a feeling this may be the long term solution. I will have to start from scratch and see if this does anything for me. Swap out incline for flat. Thanks for the heads up. When I read your post I knew immediately that your method is likely much more function then my current method. Thanks[/quote]

yeah from the last response to my post and this post, you need to learn how to bench properly. Sounds like that will solve ur problems. [/quote]

agreed, and I think the article linked by JoabSonOfZeruiah has a lot of good tips. That article discusses my very problem and provides a nice template regarding what worked to get over these strains. Very good stuff.

Just an update. I went to a physical therapist today and the conclusion was that I am suffering micro tears in the pec minor. A cause is due to my shoulder being stiff, inflexible, and rolled forward causing a “short tendon” or something. Basically, I need to gain flexibility in the area through stretching exercises. The pain is presented in the armpit but the micro tears are in a different location (pec minor).

The PT is rather expensive but the one visit gave me a lot of info and ammunition to start developing a plan. The info also backs up what folks stated in this thread about a need for retraction, etc.

incline cable flys from a bench, super slow negative, and squeeze at the top. Should help with shoulder and chest flexibility if you do these consistantly, and actually focuz on the ROM not the weight.

Another update in hopes of helping others who suffer from these issues.

I have been doing several pec minor stretches every other day and feel the tightness slowly going away. Before working out upper body I have been doing Defranco’s warmup on the foam roller and using a band. It takes me around 8 mins.

What has made this issue completely go away on bench pressing movements is the retraction of scapula and chest pushed outwards. Also, I have been doing a rep range of 10-20 reps so my weight has been lighter.

To fully retract I will lift myself up with bar and position myself properly by fully retracting, not partially retracting. Then I plant feet and puff chest a little. My ROM is 2 inches off chest and stop before lockout. It worked, no pain or tightness.

Note, I also gave myself some time to heal, two or so weeks.