Minor Pec Strain

Training Injuries
21

Alright, so I started off with some overhead pressing (normally I would be doing floor press first today) and I was planning to do a couple AMRAP sets with 225. On warmups I kind of felt something in my pec but more like I was aware of something in there than any sort of pain or discomfort, like even on band pull aparts I felt something in there but it was basically negligible. The first couple reps with 225 felt fine, but then I felt more and more of a pulling sensation in my pec so I stopped at 5. It didn’t hurt and I could have probably done at least 5 more reps but I didn’t like the feeling and I figured the first day pressing after an injury is probably not the time to push it.

So then I did a bunch of high rep benching, worked up in sets of 25 and did 155 total reps, top set was 105x25. I could have gone heavier or done more reps but again I’m being conservative plus I wasn’t resting more than about a minute between sets and my pecs and shoulders were burning (lactate I guess, I’m not used to super high reps). My pec felt basically normal afterwards though, feels like nothing ever happened.

Then I did some band pushdown, need to at least maintain my triceps for now, then a set of 50 band flys and some rotator cuff stuff and that was it.

If it’s any consolation (to myself), I wasn’t really making much progress on bench for a while so maybe this could help turn things around. I’m just going to stick with high rep work for the next while and see where it goes.

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22

Good stuff man. Good call with the OHP

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23

I almost feel like I’m being too conservative, this guy strained a pec a few weeks ago and had bruising (which I don’t) and now look at him benching 705:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CHTaGDzBVGA/

24

Today I did some high reps warmup sets and my pec felt fine, I ended up doing 255x5x5 (a bit over 60% of my max bench) and no issues, just trying not to move the bar explosively like usual and I don’t want to push close to failure. Then I did some tricep work and a bunch of pushups. I don’t feel anything in my pec on bench or pushups but if I stretch my pec I can sort of feel something in there, so it’s nothing major but still better to play it safe.

I also came across an article by Dave Tate about pec injuries and he was saying that he stopped doing flys because while he thought they were helping at first he later figured they were making it worse. So maybe flys aren’t the way to go, I don’t know. I used to do flys regularly but I felt like they were just beating up my pecs and not helping my bench so I stopped but I still do a couple sets of band flys before benching to warm up my pecs.

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