My physio thinks the injury may be caused by working at a computer all day, its been improving for just over a month, but today it was much worse, so I decided to post here.
INJURY HISTORY
A few months ago I started finding my bench was really lopsided, this got worse once until one day my shoulder seized up during a one armed push up. At this point I began seeing a physio. Apparently the muscles around the left scapula were over tightened to the point it was visibly raised on my back, and had decreased movement.
Changes in posture, sleeping position, increased chest stretching and rehab exercises involving band pulls all proved helpful and my shoulder returned largely to normal, except that I continued with mild pain whilst benching.
Last night whilst sleeping on my back, I was awoken by pain in the shoulder joint. At todays Phisio session I was told that my teres major was over tightened, but that If my shoulder was taped up, to relieve stress on that muscle I might be able to bench fine. In short I wasn’t and Shoulder pain stopped my set.
QUESTIONS
What is the best way to train around this kind of shoulder problem? Support exercises? Supportive gear like wraps?
-I am prepared to drop bench for a while, but I don’t want to.
What do people think could be physically wrong with my shoulder? My physio says that he has never seen something like this where OHP is less affected than bench
do you do plenty of pulling exercises already? if not cutting down on pressing and doing more chins, rows, face pulls, band pull aparts etc. might help
also instead of bench you could try doing unilateral floor presses for a while for fairly high (8 - 15) rep sets - if you use a neutral grip it should put less stress on your shoulder
warm up, and bench more with your, tri’s for a while. You said one arm push up, including benching, pushups and everything else how much pushing are you doing per week?
Check out Eric Cressey’s articles on the subject; he’s the king.
Lots of pulling (maybe go for a 2:1 pulling/pushing ratio), switch to DB pressing with a mostly neutral grip. If that’s still uncomfortable, floor pressing. If that’s still too uncomfortable, Push-up variations.
When I was injured a while back I started off with push-up iso-holds. Nothing more. Than gradually went to regular push-ups, then TRX push-ups.
And yeah, face pulls and lots of scap work (YTWL’s, prone row and external rotation, TRX face pulls,etc.)
I’ve decided to take the rest of december away from lifting so i can let the injury start healing.
[quote]vigilanteavenger wrote:
do you do plenty of pulling exercises already? if not cutting down on pressing and doing more chins, rows, face pulls, band pull aparts etc. might help
also instead of bench you could try doing unilateral floor presses for a while for fairly high (8 - 15) rep sets - if you use a neutral grip it should put less stress on your shoulder[/quote]
I do a lot of pulling, but since my gym removed the heavy dumbels, I am doing a lot less in thats in the same plane of motion as my bench.
[quote]bushidobadboy wrote:
Your physio sounds a bit crap. He/she should have easily and confidently diagnosed the issue and resolved the initial pain within one or two sessions, PLUS given you the most important thing: the knowledge to work on it yourself with mobility and corrective exercises.
Did he assess the biceps tendon (long head)?
BBB[/quote]
He hasn’t spoken to me about that tendon, what is its signifcance?
[quote]Airtruth wrote:
warm up, and bench more with your, tri’s for a while. You said one arm push up, including benching, pushups and everything else how much pushing are you doing per week?[/quote]
One propper pushing sessoion a week, and occational extra work on form