I’ve been running a linear progression recently and have started to have pain in the shoulder and clavicle area on my right side. The pain is dull and located right above the armpit, in the “pit” below the clavicle. It is mostly associated with movement, especially pushing my shoulder forward or when I’m bending over and letting my arm hang down. It’s not particularly sore to the touch in any way. Sometimes I can feel some soreness closer to the sternum that seems related to the neck muscles that run up the side of the neck. These muscles often feel tense. Keeping my shoulder completely still in a neutral position for a long time makes it better.
I have a hard time figuring out what caused it since on that day, I did squats, bench press, Pendlay rows and chin ups. I didn’t notice any pain while training in any exercise although the bench press was heavy, might have flared a bit on the last reps in the later sets. I only noticed something when going to bed in the evening after having a couple of beer with some colleagues.
When I woke up, it felt somewhat dull, more like a soreness rather than something else. The next workout went well and there wasn’t really any pain and the same goes for the next, bench and OHP were both fine. In between workouts, it felt successively shitty, however. Last workout, I was a bit bother in the overhead press with some “soreness” feeling as well as quite some clicking. Deadlifts were fine as far as a I remember but squats was somewhat uncomfortable. Chinups felt decent.
Todays workout, squats felt okay but bench didn’t feel very good, even when warming up. The pain was tolerable but it didn’t feel very good. Just testing out a few empty bar overhead presses (my workset is 33 kg) to see what that felt like and I didn’t have any particular problems but I get the impression that a very narrow grip makes it worse. After today’s workout, pain is back to base level after a few hours.
Now, I have no idea what this is and no idea what I should keep doing and what I should change. Reading about all the various shoulder ailments, none seem to really fit with what I’m experiencing. It’s been a week since it started now. Any ideas?
Hi, sorry to hear you’ve been having some issues with your shoulder/chest, hopefully we can help you out.
It’s difficult to make a specific diagnosis based on symptoms but it’s usually not necessary if we want to figure out how to progress and make any changes. We can use the symptoms as feedback for helping to manage activity and programming. It’s likely that if it’s a fairly recent symptom, about 1 week, it can change for the positive quickly if you continue to train and find tolerable movements and loads. What might help is understanding just a bit more about your training:
How long have you been running the LP? Are you still adding weight each session to each lift? Are you doing anything outside of the main barbell lifts and chins/rows?
Hey, Mike, thank you very much for the answer! Love what you guys are doing over here, a voice of reason.
I understand that it’s difficult to make a very clear diagnosis. However, reading Dr. Baraki’s articles, listening to podcasts and reading this forum, I’ve understood that that just like you say, unless there are any red flags or things that are very clearly wrong, it’s more of a load management issue.
To be honest, I have been running the LP for almost three months but due to knee problems and a brief SI-joint tweak, I had to deload my squat and deadlift even though I’m working my way up again at the moment. So for squats and deadlifts, I’m currently adding 2.5 kg every session. Squats are not pushing my limits currently (lower than my peak before deload) and my deadlifts are getting there.
For OHP and bench, I’m increasing by 1 kg every session assuming I completed all my reps the last session which often works. However, for these two lifts, there have been some failure and the same applies for rows which I’ve also lowered the increment for down to 1 kg. So yeah, I’m still adding weight but it’s not very consistent since I’m failing sometimes… a bit “grindy” I suppose.
For chin-ups, I was doing negatives 3x10 for a while, but am now trying out doing chin-ups with progressively increasing partial ROM by doing them from the barbell and raising it one step for every session, doing 3x5.
Outside of this, I don’t do any other training and have a desk job as a programmer.
Great, thanks for the additional information! If you’re seeing the lifts trend up after some de-loading that’s a good sign. Although, this might be a good time to start thinking about transitioning to an auto-regulated program as the linear progression will start to fluctuate and plateau, which is a totally normal response but indicative you might need a new strategy. Are you familiar with using RPE (rating of perceived exertion) for selecting training loads?
So for some more specifics, I worked up to squats at 60 kg but deloaded and am now back at 45 kg which is far from what I could do but I don’t want to rush it due to the knee issues. For deadlifts, my last set of five was 80 kg and I don’t think there will be any issue to hit my planned 82.5 kg next time. Overhead press best was at 32 kg x 5x5 and best bench press was at 45 kg 5x5. The thing is that I feel like all these seem very low compared to what some people are getting on their linear progression so I’m hesitant to move on to something else just yet.
Of course, I understand that’s a very individual thing so it might very well be that I don’t respond very well to grinding out sets of 5, what do I know. Otherwise, I have been thinking about RPE and could probably pull it off with some practice. I have The Bridge. although it gains some complexity over programs like SSLP and Stronglits 5x5 so I’m not totally sold.
Do you think RPE would also help prevent injury? Maybe “overuse” is a better term so as to not catastrophize my situation because there have certainly not been anything “acute”.
Thanks for responding, sorry for the delay, but those are definitely fair questions.
As for linear progression, it’s really up to when you stop seeing linear progress week to week when you can decide if you want to move on to a more periodized program. As you said, it’s an individual process, so while your numbers may be less compared to others, a norm doesn’t exist for when you should stop. We’re always trying to play the long game with training, and we just know that linear progress happens in the short term. You can definitely continue to run the LP, but just know you can move on to a more periodized program whenever you want.
That being said, the complexity of The Bridge speaks to the variation and auto-regulation that will give you more control over your training. It will definitely take some practice with learning new variations and using RPE to help select loads, but that’s a normal process of learning how to train. It’s something that will definitely get better over time. Alan Thrall has a useful series that introduces some of the core concepts of RPE: https://youtu.be/WXQaEq4_2lY . Also, if you have the free version of The Bridge, there is some written information in there as well.
As for the utility of RPE and injury, as you’re alluding to, it’s not so much as an injury risk reducer, it’s more so a way of giving you more control over your training. We have some evidence that suggests that lower self-efficacy is a predictor of persistent pain, while higher levels of it can positively influence performance. So yes, if you have the ability to take more control over your training, it may lead to less fear-avoidance and catastrophization because there’s self-directed flexibility in your programming.
Hope that helps, let me know if you have any other questions or updates.
I think I get what you mean about moving on from LP. Right now, I feel like I’m still getting something out of pushing myself a little bit.
However, since this shoulder thing started, I did adjust my training by deloading a bit to a level where the discomfort felt tolerable (for some definition of “tolerable”) and starting to work myself back up again. I’ve also adjusted my bench technique a bit, keeping my back more tight and really pulling my shoulders down towards my hips.
The issue is definitely not gone yet but I feel like it’s improving over time. Benching can still make it flare up slightly but not to the point where it bothers me. Outside of training I don’t really notice it except for the occasional pop or crack. I have noticed that it’s a bit worse in the morning when getting out of bed but it seems to improve pretty quickly after that.
Does this sound good? Should I just continue like this? It didn’t feel like resting helped but at the same time I feel that “tolerable” is very subjective so I’m not sure I’m correctly judging whether I’m doing okay or not