A few weeks ago I injured the front part of my shoulder during a rep of close grip bench. I think I might have come down a bit too high up on my chest and I felt a bit of pain and click/pop type of feeling. I did not think too much about it and continued to do my top sets at RPE 9 and it actually felt ok. I figured it was just a one time, one rep weird thing that happened.
Well, fast forward 3 weeks later and I’m still having pain. I’ve progressively reduced my load a lot over this time and it seems to be helping a little, but it’s not going away. I feel it several hours after benching and sometimes at other times, less than a 4 on a 1-10 scale. It bothers me a little on all the exercises, but not so bad that I need to reduce my load on any other exercise besides bench and press. Last week during my working sets on deadlifts I could feel my should as I dropped the weight, like a pop sensation. My shoulder just felt a little unstable, not a lot of pain though.
I benched today and kept it pretty light, -35% of my last single @ 8 that I did a few weeks ago with a healthy shoulder. It didn’t bother me during the sets too much, maybe 2 out of 10 on the pain scale. Several hours after, it bothers me more.
Any recommendation on managing the issue?
Should I continue to reduce the load? If so, how much by percentage? And then how/when do I work back up?
If load management does not work, should I try doing bench variations like floor press or pin press? I feel the irritation at the bottom of the rep, so it seems like these variations might be good? Or should I just move to a limited range of motion right away until it starts to feel better?
Sorry to hear about the shoulder issue. Sounds like you are on the right track with load management. If you’ve reduced the load down to say, the empty barbell, or even switched to dumbbells that weigh less than a 45# bar combined, then I’d say it’s time to shorten the range of motion via pin-presses or floor presses. Often I add in tempo to limit the external loading as well but to increase internal loading (RPE) which gives the feeling and fatigue that you are still training.
There are no hard and fast rules to when to progress things but rather symptoms will likely be a part of the process but should be tolerable. If you find that you train and symptoms are tolerable but then afterwards are severely increasing, then it is likely you didn’t tolerate loading that day and need to make modifications. In these scenarios I typically program two week blocks before making alterations to volume or intensity. Keep us posted. Happy to discuss.
This is all very helpful. I will continue to reduce my load on monitor things from there. The tempo thing is great advice. I’m doing some type of benching movement 3 days a week on my current “GPP template”, so plenty of opportunity to experiment. I will also work with my coach to come up with a good strategy.
If I need further assistance, I will sign up for a consultation(s) if that’s ok? I’m guessing I just do that on the BBM website?
I think the most important thing is not to go into the injury spiral thinking my lifting career is over and keep moving!