Hello all, I realize I may be opening a can of worms and stirring a lot of controversy and perhaps even a flame war, but I was wondering if I could get your input and ideas on the case of partial rom VS full rom. A few months ago I had started developing some AC joint pain and push ups exacerbated the injury.
I realize that when my arm was past parallel, I was putting stress on the ac joint even when I worked like hell to activate the serratus anterior to protect the capsule. I begin experimenting with certain ROMS and I found that I had zero pain going halfway down, but I could feel my ac joint when I would go past parallel. Looking at the disadvantages VS advantages of Full ROM vs Partial ROM I could not find reason enough to stick with full ROM.
I am still getting scapular retraction and protraction, I’m still getting adequate involvement of the triceps, i am still getting involvement of the pecs with perhaps a downside being less eccentric stress, what I am not getting is ac joint irritation. The one disadvantage I could think of was less eccentric stress on the pecs, which is not really an issue, in my opinion.
Another point I would like to make is going past parallel in the push up is a disadvantageous position for anyone, and that while i am symptomatic, it has the potential to affect anyone.
PS, I was not doing dips during my period of ac joint pain or any exercises with full extension of the humeral head. I would love to hear your guy’s thoughts on this and perhaps something I’m missing with full range of motion push ups.
The arguments for a full ROM pushup are the same for full ROM BB or DB exercises. I don’t think there’s anyone on T-Nation who truly advocates quarter squats or those brutal arm bends some people call the bench as adequate exercises.
Understandably you are in pain and need to do something to keep your strength up. My recommendation is, and this from someone who had a similar problem, is to dial back the mass on the weights and develop your shoulders to complete the motion properly. For me the addition of OHP and bent over rows (or chins) developed the proper balance my shoulders needed and eliminated any discomfort I felt using my shoulders. Now there’s no need to do arm bends and call them Bench (or pushups as the case may be).
If you have pain going past parallel on pushups, then partial ROM is great. The worst thing is feeling pain on any exercise, i go through the same thing with dips. When i go past parallel i feel a slight pain in my delts. Stopping right at parallel is much safer, and this applies to every pushing exercise. On the bench press going past parallel puts a lot of stress on the joints. The positives outway the negatives, and its not like the muscle targeted wont get efficient stimulation.
[quote]SMF wrote:
What angle is your humerus to your body? It might seem crazy but many peoples form on push ups is poor to say the least.[/quote]
x2
Many people try to stick to the 90 degree or close. Which really should only be used for advanced and even then not often. Anyway, if you get pain doing full then don’t do them, but don’t say that that means it’s bad for your joints.
Have you seen anyone (i.e. physiotherapist) about this?
How many push-ups are you doing and how often?
Are you doing any pre-hab/rehab/mobility work for the shoulders (i.e. band pull aparts, face pulls, YTWL circuits, broom handle dislocates etc.)?
Even if you choose not to include full ROM because you believe the risk outweighs the benefits (not saying I agree with this at all) you should definitely be working towards being able to do so without pain. Just as many people choose to avoid including BB bench press for fear of shoulder injury, almost anybody with healthy shoulders should be able to bench relatively heavy without pain provided that they use proper form. Anybody without healthy shoulders should be working a plan to get them healthy.
Given the relatively light loads of standard push-ups (about 60% BW I believe) I would say that this is even more true of push-ups than bench.
I own Optimal Shoulder Performance, Assess and Correct, and Inside Out, I would pretty much consider myself to be in the loop. My warm ups are structured and tailored to my individual weaknesses. My muscular structure is great, I balance my pull-push ratio 2-1 and I have no forms of muscular pathology of the shoulder, my symptoms are largely joint pain related and I’ve heard that because its largely a tendon and ligament issue, not much can be done from a structural balance stand point.
As far as technique i work like hell to not push my humeral head into anterior tilt, but find there is a little bit of tilt even with a pushing out of the chest and activation of the scapula, I am trying to minimize scapular anterior tilt but find i still feel my ac joint when i do them that way. Thank you for any input you may have and i am open to any suggestions.
I do partials to parallel and they are far from elbow bends, I am not trying to compensate for weakness, i am very strong and am just trying to deal with the ac joint pain. The only things I have heard for ac joint are subscap activation and manual depressions of the clavicle. By the way I do not have a a scapular winging or muscular imbalance. This is strange because I have never had an ac joint injury, only minor ac joint pain from full ROM.
question: if you were to say stand facing a wall and do a full ROM pushup against the wall does your AC joint hurt? or if you were lying on a bench with no weights in your hands and did the pushup movement does your joint hurt?
Sorry I know it sounds like a stupid question, but from your answer to me it sounds like structurally there is nothing (or at the very least only a minor/old injury). And I know you own Optimal Shoulder Performance, Assess and Correct, and Inside Out - but if there is no pain and your form is perfect when you do the movement without weight then is it not a possibility that perhaps you overlooked something in your assessment? (devil’s advocate)
I didn’t think about this until now but I guess theoretically you’re doing an “imaginary board” press. Which is often trained and valuable for guys looking to do big lifts. So perhaps there is no advantage in this case to avoiding or completing the movement other then the fact that you experience no pain.