Have I possibly strained/tore my pectoral muscle?

Pain Science & Rehab Discussion
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1

Just over a week ago I was bench pressing. During my warm up sets I noticed a sharp pain in my left pectoral muscle. I definitely rushed my warm ups that day so although the weight wasn’t heavy I was pushing the weight very quickly. 60kg, 80kg 100kg and so on, it was during the 60 or 80 that It started hurt.

I then carried on and did end up getting a 3 rep PR. The pain was mainly there at the beginning when taking the weight of the bar off the rack, wasn’t unbearable so carried on.

I then had another session 4 days later and noticed it was very painful to take the bar off of the bench rack but still had most of my strength, however I deemed it responsible to call it quits at around 100kg as it was hurting and I didn’t want to cause any further damage.

i’m now at a point where I am due another push session but unsure if I should avoid bench or not, incline doesn’t seem to hurt, or is this bad too? I have no pain in general and have full range of movement, however if I put my hand on my side/back and push my elbow forward to tense the pectoral I feel the same sharp pain.

Should I continue to rest (just do overhead exercises and leave chest alone) or do a light session? Also should I see a physiotherapist about the matter or just give it time?

The pain is a sharp pain in the minor (I think) part of the chest close to my armpit, however it seems difficult to fully locate the exact place of pain. It only hurts when using it in certain positions.

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Any help would be greatly appreciated.

3

Update,

I’ve been and only done light exercises where chest is involved, I feel like the pain could be coming from towards under the armpit and into the chest a bit.

4

Hey dude.

It would be worthwhile if you could post this in the moderated section for Pain and Rehab to get a reply from one of the BBM crew. While you wait for a reply, you can also search for posts by other members who may have been in a similar situation.

Also, have you taken a gander at this extremely invaluable article?

The general advice is to continue training, while keeping pain within tolerable levels as your body takes care of healing itself. You said you still have full RoM and can bench although at a lower weight, that’s great news.

  • You can introduce a tempo to your bench press and increase the rep number to maintain a high relative intensity.

  • You can also identify other variations (like high pin bench, floor press etc) that allow you to lift heavy weights with pain symptoms within your tolerance.

Wishing you all the best on your path to recovery. :sunglasses: