Shoulder + Upper Arm Bench Pain

Training Beginners
1

Hola people. I’ve been doing Starting Strength for almost 5 months now, been making pretty consistent gains, cant really complain about the effectiveness and the results. One problem that I am encountering though is my bench pressing. While I was slowly gaining in my bench press lifts, I’ve seemed ot have stalled. I decided to give it three strikes until I do a reset, and today was the 3rd one.

I’m on 140 5x3 now (started at 95…pretty weak I know), and today, I was having increasing shoulder + upper arm pain. I haven’t had this much before, and my warm-ups felt fine as well. The pain is felt at my joints I think, rather than muscle pain.

I feel like it may be a hand position error, but I’ve tried different positions and cant seem to avoid the pain. I’ve been using some Rippetoe videos as a guide to help, and have asked a couple of ppl at the gym about it, not sure. Any ideas that might help relieve the problem?

2

Stop Benching.

Swapping for DB benching can sometimes help or doing another exercise.

3

Probably from creatine…stop taking steriods.

4

Sounds like overworked anterior delts. take a couple of week off from bench and military press. If your other lifts are still progressing then keep with the program.

Don’t start pressing again until your shoulders feel better. Once your ready to start pressing again, incorporate stretching, perform thorough warm-ups, and maybe incorporate band stretches and shoulder prehab.