I’ve been dealing with some right tricep flare-ups on heavy bench press days for a while now, but it doesn’t seem to happen on lighter ones. Initially, I suspected that my squat might be contributing to the issue, with bench press just exposing it. During some of my grindier squat sets, I used to unintentionally support the bar with my hands, which may have strained things. To help mitigate that, I started using wrist wraps, and I believe they’ve made a difference.
My bench press grip is fairly narrow, so I rely heavily on my triceps. To address this, I’ve incorporated LTEs (Lying Tricep Extensions) into my routine for some rehab work, which has helped to an extent, though the pain hasn’t completely subsided. At my last meet, the flare-up was particularly noticeable during a tough third attempt bench press that I failed.
Interestingly, I don’t feel any issues when doing overhead presses (OHP); the flare-ups are isolated to the bench press.
I’m about to start the Strength 2 template and am considering widening my bench press grip to reduce the stress on my triceps, as well as being conservative with weights at the beginning.
Any advice or tips on how to address this would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!
It sounds like you’ve identified this as a load-dependent / overuse-type issue.
When it comes to your bench/arm training, we rarely can solve overuse syndromes simply by adding more exercises. We need to address triggers, allow things to calm down, and then train in a way that builds capacity back up.
So, definitely agree with finding strategies to offload the elbows during your squatting – whether using wrist wraps or adjustments to bar position / technique. This should mitigate one of the triggers and allow things to calm down.
Next, you likely need to pull back from top-end loading on the bench for a bit, to further allow things to calm down.
This can be substituted with lower-load bench pressing, bench pressing further from failure/lower RPEs, and using a wider variety of pressing variations (dumbbell, barbell with varying grips/specialty bars, machine presses). As things build back up, you can gradually transition back to more specific competition-style bench training with heavier loads and closer to failure.
This is the process we’ve outlined in these two articles:
Hope this helps. If you need further individualized guidance, our rehab team would be happy to consult and help.