Horses for courses mate. I would struggle with your deadlift session.
That is the secret mate, eat lots more.
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Gotta work hard to catch you up mate.
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Ok so shoulder update. I went to see the physio today. He put me through a bunch of tests, you know the stuff push up, out, in etc. etc. Nothing really hurt which is what I expected. Got me to do a dip off the bed and there was a bit of tightness but no real pain. He then massages the pec, shoulder and bicep tendon and fk me was it sore. He did the other side too and no pain other than what a normal tight muscle feels like when you massage it.
He then puts some ice on it and one of those electric massage pad things and leaves me for 20 mins.
So the diagnosis is it is the bicep tendon that is inflamed. Basically the additional volume of bench over time is most likely the cause but because I have been managing volume and intensity it has been getting a little sore but not enough to do anything about until now. For this week the treatment is ice, anti inflammatory and rest. He is ok for me to train everything else but to just leave bench for this week. He is then going to see if we can introduce some limited range of motion or change the press a bit, maybe narrow grip. The plan is to reduce the stretch at the bottom of the bench and add it back in slowly.
He had also given me some isometric bicep hold exercises to do, so maybe I’ll get bigger guns as part of the rehab!!
Good news is no muscle issues, no obvious tears. He thinks it should be fairly easy to manage.
I am pretty happy about this.
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That isn’t the worst news Rob, almost good news. Good that it’s something he can do something about.
Train unracking 140 kg or more on bench and when used to it do 1/4 reps, and some light board presses. Or just use the pec dec thing to train the chest.
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That sounds like a pretty good physio who knows about lifting. Very rare over here.
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I used him before about 4 Years ago when I was a runner and had a calf tear. He has worked with runners, swimmers (including the Australian team and also Michael Phelps) and other athletes or sports people (soccer, rugby). He doesn’t really know too much specifically about powerlifting but he did take time to ask me what training I was doing and understanding how the programming worked and also how the bench press works in competition. So wanted to know what range of motion I needed to do. He asked a lot about the other exercises I do and was happy I had enough balance with rows, pull ups, dumbell rows and band pull aparts in my training.
Hopefully some proper rest and ramping back up with limited range will be enough for me to practice the movement and not lose too much strength.
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Yer maybe some board press or even some pin press might work.
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Happy to hear it wasn’t anything serious.
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This is good news. Almost exactly what I suspected it was.
Honestly, drop the barbell for a month or two. It’ll help healing immensely and won’t hurt your strength.
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Thanks Mark. Coach said basically the same thing. Squats are in a really good place right now with plenty more to come. We aren’t pushing deadlift ok hard but it seems to be coming along for the ride. I have a lot more to gain in those two lifts than I can lose in bench anyway. So rest for now and then do some movements that don’t activate the tendon for a while.
Thanks Chicken. I was pretty happy too. 
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If you just use DBs, chances are you won’t even lose anything. You’ll just have a short period where you polish your technique back up is all
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I used dumbells last night and there was some soreness there when I was at the lowered position, maybe I can use a slightly less range of motion. I will have to experiment.
Drop them as well then. If you need to, two and three board work will do perfectly fine (@Koestrizer has a neat way of making a one-man board setup).
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+1 for board presses.
Here’s how to make the block which @MarkKO mentioned.
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@Koestrizer what are the dimensions of that yoga block you used?
This all has me sorta wondering if my elbow tendonitis might benefit from putting down the barbell for a few weeks.
Yer I have a hole saw, I was just wondering how big the block was.