I have history of rotator cuff inflammation on left shoulder and It took 6months to benching again without any pain.
I started beginner template 3 weeks ago and it went very well. I was cautious about the dose of stress on bench so my heaviest bench work set was never more than RPE 7.5.
About a week ago I started to feel pain on my right shoulder(not the left which I injured before) and I’m pretty sure it’s rotator cuff because it’s hurt when I’m doing so called “rotator cuff rehab exercises”(I did it for self diagnosis purposes, not to “strengthen” it)
first 3 weeks of beginner template doesn’t seem to put ridiculous stress to shoulder and I think I did my job to managing the stress but it happend again.
I heard your pain injury podcast and read shoulder articles so I’m planning to train the bench and press with the weight i can lift without pain. but I think the pain is more related with the grip width and shoulder angle than weight. Close grip(shoulder width), elbow tucked bench doesn’t hurt with relatively heavy weight but wide grip (1~2inch wider than shoulder width on each side)or flared elbow bench starts to hurt with relatively light weight. Sometimes I even felt pop(tweak?) on my shoulder(both) while I’m doing wide grip bench.
my question is
Do you recommend me to do wide grip bench with light weight or close grip with relatively heavy weight?
I thought that I was managing the bench/press stress in conservative way but it happend again. I’m not sure how to train my bench/press even if I get well in near future. any recommendations?
Hey @Hahn - sorry to hear about the shoulder symptoms.
It depends on how symptomatic you feel like you are. Sometimes we simply regulate loading of the area via weight, RPE, sets, reps, tempo, etc and others we change exercise selection to aid with regression of symptoms and returning to baseline. You can try loading alterations first and then perhaps change grip if that doesn’t work.
These things happen and it’s easy to think something is abnormal but pain is a part of life and what matters most is how we handle/cope with the situation. I would just do your best training in the future while managing loading, fatigue, life stressors, sleep, etc with the understanding that we are humans and training simply can’t just exponentially improve without ever experiencing bumps in the road.