Hello Everyone,
I have recently began strength training, and have been taking it seriously. However, I keep getting some left shoulder pain while bench presssing. I feel the pain during the eccentric portion of the lift. It originates at the front of my left shoulder, extends down my Bicep, and worsens as the bar gets closer to my chest. I don’t feel this pain at all when dealing with lighter weight (under 140lbs). This pain also happens when doing pendlay Rows. As I Row the bar closer and closer to my chest I feel the pain as well. The pain isn’t significant. If I had to rate the pain on scale out of 10. I would say it’s at most a 2. I also feel no pain doing any other pressing variations, even Overhead Presses (maybe because the weight is much lighter?). However, squatting with a Barbell on my back feels awful. No matter how high I keep the bar on my back, or how wide I keep my hands, securing the bar on my back just hurts badly. However, It is much worse the lower I keep the bar and the closer my hands are. For now, I’ve just been doing front loaded Squats. If I had to rate the shoulder pain for Barbell back squats, I’d give it a 5-7 depending on how high or low I keep the bar and how close my hands are.
To give some background. My left shoulder isn’t the best as I’ve hurt it on a chest Press machine in the past when I was younger (18 or so). I’m 23 years old now, and my shoulder has improved a lot, other than the pain I’m currently experiencing.
I have been doing my best to maintaim good technique on all my lifts, and have been using a standard Barbell.
My questions are as follows:
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Should I keep continuing to bench press if the pain isn’t significant. My strength has been going up, but I’m worried I’m going to make it worse if I keep going up in weight?
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Any specific exercises I can do to get rid of the pain all together? I’ve been doing a lot of band pull aparts, facepulls, int/ext Rotations, etc. to warmup my shoulders which does seem to help.
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What would you guys recommend I do for Barbell back squatting as I’m at loss there. It seems nothing I do helps my shoulder except avoiding barbell back squats all together.
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Would it be worth it to do a close grip bench press or floor press to get rid of the pain, or perhaps would using a Swiss bar help?
Thank you all in advance.
Ben