Shoulders Bench Press
Bring back the bench minus the shoulder pain.
Shoulders bench press. The close grip bench press is a good substitute for the bench press if you have shoulder issues. The narrow grip keeps your elbows closer to your body and doesn t let them go as deep. In any case it s amazing how much better most shoulders will feel after a couple of weeks of laying off the bench press and addressing muscular imbalances by including more rowing into the mix.
The bench press puts the shoulders in a very vulnerable position which can lead to injury. Perhaps the most common issue especially for men is shoulder pain stemming from the flat barbell bench press. With proper form the shoulders can perform much better and are less likely to be put under abnormal stresses.
Speaking truthfully outside of the powerlifting realm i d be perfectly content with nixing benching altogether for most guys and just opting for push up variations and dumbbell work. But the last thing many diehard lifters are going to skip is their bench press. A major problem during the bench press is lack of upper back tightness.
It targets muscles of the upper chest and shoulders. Wrong touch position one of the most common bench press form mistakes people make is touching the bar too high on their chest at the bottom position. Bench press anterior deltoid pec strain.
For this variation the front of the bench is angled between 45 and 60 degrees so you are leaning back slightly. If your shoulders hurt when you bench press despite using proper form try close grip. This is a common bench press injury with the anterior delt and pec becoming potentially shortened weak and painful.
Properly implementing the above three step process to your bench press form will drastically improve the shoulder pain you experience when benching. It amazes me that people still believe scapular motion should occur during the bench press. Front side shoulder pain is common.
The reasons why benching hurts your shoulders is a topic for another article but suffice it to say that shoulder pain usually isn t so much the fault of benching itself but rather the misuse and overuse of the exercise. If the scapulae do not stay locked in retraction the entire lift this can cause anterior scapular tilt at the bottom of the bench press leading to anterior shoulder discomfort. The bench press is a great chest exercise but it can be dangerous for the shoulders with improper form.