Managing programming while dealing with shoulder pain

Training Q&A [Moderated]
1

Hi everyone,

I’ve been dealing with this irritating shoulder pain for about 4 weeks now (started around the 2nd half of Bridge 2.0), and it mainly hurts when I bench press and a little bit on pressing, but it’s much more tolerable. I’ve continued to train through it sticking to the program and my target weight, but the pain has not mitigated at all. I am able to tolerate it but I still feel pain on every rep and even after the gym at times and I don’t want to continue to piss it off going forward from now on (I probably will ask more about this in the pain forum, I came here to mainly ask about my program)

I’ve been training for a little bit over a year now, and this will be the first time I applied BBM’s approach to pain while training. I’ve had acute pain moments in the past before, but I reassured myself that I will be ok, and things got better within a day or two (thank you, guys!). I just finished day 2 of the updated 3-day hypertrophy template, and I tried benching with an empty barbell and slowly added 5-10 pounds after every set and got to around 85-95 pounds (I would normally be working at 175-185) where I would begin to feel pain, but it is much more tolerable than my working sets. So I will continue to add weight slowly after each bench session or stay at 85-95lbs, and if things don’t improve, I will most likely find another variation, or focus more on pressing than benching.

I just have a few questions that I hope you guys can answer for me.

  1. If the working set prescribes for # of reps @ 6, 7, and 8, I honestly don’t know how many sets I should be doing during my competition bench exercise if the weight is going to be very low, and especially if the RPE I hit with this light weight will probably be less than 5. For someone managing load based on the pain, what would be the recommended volume scheme you’d prescribe in this kind of scenario? I have a feeling this will vary on the individual, but is there a general recommendation?

  2. For myoreps on day 2, rather benching again, I pressed instead at the rack just so I don’t piss off my shoulder repeatedly with the bench, and probably will do so for the rest of the program until my shoulder gets better. Is this something you’d favor?

  3. What are your thoughts on training with minimal pain? Sorry if this is a broad question.

As always, thank you and please let me know if I am missing any additional information.

2

Hey Sean,

  1. I would not perform more than the prescribed volume, and depending on your symptoms (i.e., if it gets worse during / after the session), I may actually do less than prescribed. Otherwise, just stick to the prescribed # of sets.

  2. That’s fine.

  3. I’m not sure what this is asking.

If you’re having persistent issues that are difficult to work around, a consult with our rehab guys may be of benefit to you as well.