So I was doing dips last wednesday or thursday and the tendon connecting the front deltoid to the pectoral muscle that runs right in front of the arm pit totally freaked out on me. I’m at the point where I can’t even do a dip without it hurting me, I even feel the damn thing while doing pushups. No bruising, no swelling. What the hell?
I guess I’m going to have to work on lowerbody and overhead stuff because this stupid nagging thing is ruining my horizontal pressing efforts. I took two days off completely and obviously have layed off chest related lifting.
Should I just try to take a week or two off from upperbody stuff?
You might be able to do some one armed pushing work… for the carry-over benefit.
Since you are asking in the beginners forum I’ll ask if you are doing pulling work? Various rows? Chins? There is a fair amount of upper body work that won’t involve much chest.
For the same reason, I’ll ask if you are starting new lifts at near max effort levels?
You might want to take a look at Cressey’s "Cracking the Rotator Cuff’ article. Just in case its not your tendon that’s acting up and maybe the teres minor or something. Useful read in any case.
I was doing ABBH I, so I was doing chin-ups, bent over BB rows, bench, and dips for upperbody. I had been doing dips for three weeks and was doing a warmup set with bodyweight when my injury happened. It’s definitely not the teres minor, because it feels more like this tendon connects to the lower shoulder/top of bicep rather than to the rotator cuff.
Since I can’t work horizontal chest I’ll probably just end up doing back/legs/shoulders until this feels 100%.
I’m not sure about the 1 handed-press deal; I’m sure there’s CNS improvement to the other arm, but I’d rather not risk a muscle imbalance.