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First of all thank you Barbell medicine for all the great content you made.
In the summer of 2022 I was following the powerlift II template and the intensity (lots of @8/@9 press work) might have been too much for me. I noticed my left shoulder starting to trouble me with a bit of pain and as a tactic I changed my competition grip to a close grip and I could bench pain free. For a few weeks this went great and I was even hitting a PR with that grip (so no all Time bench pr, but a close grip bench pr). My best 1RM bench around that time was 140 kilo to give an idea of my strength level. Anyway after a few weeks the close grip started to hurt too and I figures I would just keep my volume about the same, dial back in kilo's and built back up. I was familiar with barbell medicine content and of course the 'famous' article pain in training what to do. Unfortunately building up in a few weeks did not help. In the meantime I have tried a lot of excreties that I could tolerate better and dialed back volume.
I can find entry points on exercises so a weight that does not cause any pain and I try to build from there, but every time I get to a certain amount of kilo's its 'too much' and my shoulder hurts again. Then my shoulder hurts during training and the days after including extra stiffness that I do not feel in the other shoulder.
For example the last month I had removed flat bench and only did incline bench because I can tolerate it better. But I could bench around 60-75 kilo's pain free, 75-90 kilo's with a bit of pain and above 90 kilo's the more weight the more it hurts. And the more it hurts the longer my shoulder is painful and stiff after the session. It's been months since I last benched 100 kilo's.
My main press is currently the incline dumbell press. I can do this excersise complete tpainfree with 20 kilo's, and 30's is going fine as wel. Above 35 kilo's kinda hurts. This week I tried 40 kilo's for 7 reps at like an RPE4, but I could feel during the excersise the strength was there but my shoulder did not like it. I dropped the back off sets because it felt painful again and moved on.
At this moment I press 3 times per week.
Day 1 Incline press 1-3 work sets, low RPE
Day 2 dumbell shoulder press (strongly with a barbell its really painful, with dumbells I feel nothing), this is the only excursive that goes well and I train with RPE 7-9
Day 3 Incline barbell benchpress, extreme low RPE and just pumping.
This is what I did the last 5 weeks and not getting frustrated on the flat bench was nice for a few weeks, but I dont really feel that my shoulder is recovering. I could not incline press 35+ kg pain free 5 weeks ago and I still can't do it.
My conclusion is that I can find an entry point (I could even go back to flat bench and find an entry point without pain) but I have trouble progressing the right way. It's hard to imagine I already have this injury for 12 months and maybe I have not been progressing the right way. Also important to notice I did visit a physical therapist a few times, but he said there was not really a problem and it would get better if I would just decrease training enough.
I hope to find a bit of guidance and feedback how I should move forward from here. Would be awesome if I am injury free and benching heavy weights again before the end of the year : )
Thanks in advance.
Edit:
While I have written this I think my problem is I find it very hard to decide how to progress and how much 'pain' is acceptable. Ofcourse I had injuries in the past, for example about 6 month ago I hurt my back while warming up for the deadlift. I followed the BBM method, so deadlifting very low weight the next session and I could add weight every week and in 3 weeks I was training with normal weights again. But in this case with my shoulder it did not work that way at all...
In the summer of 2022 I was following the powerlift II template and the intensity (lots of @8/@9 press work) might have been too much for me. I noticed my left shoulder starting to trouble me with a bit of pain and as a tactic I changed my competition grip to a close grip and I could bench pain free. For a few weeks this went great and I was even hitting a PR with that grip (so no all Time bench pr, but a close grip bench pr). My best 1RM bench around that time was 140 kilo to give an idea of my strength level. Anyway after a few weeks the close grip started to hurt too and I figures I would just keep my volume about the same, dial back in kilo's and built back up. I was familiar with barbell medicine content and of course the 'famous' article pain in training what to do. Unfortunately building up in a few weeks did not help. In the meantime I have tried a lot of excreties that I could tolerate better and dialed back volume.
I can find entry points on exercises so a weight that does not cause any pain and I try to build from there, but every time I get to a certain amount of kilo's its 'too much' and my shoulder hurts again. Then my shoulder hurts during training and the days after including extra stiffness that I do not feel in the other shoulder.
For example the last month I had removed flat bench and only did incline bench because I can tolerate it better. But I could bench around 60-75 kilo's pain free, 75-90 kilo's with a bit of pain and above 90 kilo's the more weight the more it hurts. And the more it hurts the longer my shoulder is painful and stiff after the session. It's been months since I last benched 100 kilo's.
My main press is currently the incline dumbell press. I can do this excersise complete tpainfree with 20 kilo's, and 30's is going fine as wel. Above 35 kilo's kinda hurts. This week I tried 40 kilo's for 7 reps at like an RPE4, but I could feel during the excersise the strength was there but my shoulder did not like it. I dropped the back off sets because it felt painful again and moved on.
At this moment I press 3 times per week.
Day 1 Incline press 1-3 work sets, low RPE
Day 2 dumbell shoulder press (strongly with a barbell its really painful, with dumbells I feel nothing), this is the only excursive that goes well and I train with RPE 7-9
Day 3 Incline barbell benchpress, extreme low RPE and just pumping.
This is what I did the last 5 weeks and not getting frustrated on the flat bench was nice for a few weeks, but I dont really feel that my shoulder is recovering. I could not incline press 35+ kg pain free 5 weeks ago and I still can't do it.
My conclusion is that I can find an entry point (I could even go back to flat bench and find an entry point without pain) but I have trouble progressing the right way. It's hard to imagine I already have this injury for 12 months and maybe I have not been progressing the right way. Also important to notice I did visit a physical therapist a few times, but he said there was not really a problem and it would get better if I would just decrease training enough.
I hope to find a bit of guidance and feedback how I should move forward from here. Would be awesome if I am injury free and benching heavy weights again before the end of the year : )
Thanks in advance.
Edit:
While I have written this I think my problem is I find it very hard to decide how to progress and how much 'pain' is acceptable. Ofcourse I had injuries in the past, for example about 6 month ago I hurt my back while warming up for the deadlift. I followed the BBM method, so deadlifting very low weight the next session and I could add weight every week and in 3 weeks I was training with normal weights again. But in this case with my shoulder it did not work that way at all...
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