Trying to keep this short and sweet. No acute injury, but pain has increased over time (last 3-4 weeks). First noticed it with squats, where I was using the overhand grip and shoulders too far back. I’ve since corrected this with wrist wraps, thumbs-around, and a slight wrist extension. Feels much better. Could this be the cause itself?
Presses don’t hurt at all. Bench might cause a slight shooting pain on the descent, but nothing bad. I do have random shots of pain during normal, unweighted arm movements throughout the day though. No dull aches. I’m a side sleeper, and wake up with shoulder pain at night.
None of the self-diagnosing tests I’ve googled are a problem except for one. If I place the back of my hand into the small of my back, and then try to pull that hand up my spine, it begins getting very tight and painful the higher I go. Pain is centered on what feels like the top part of my shoulder.
Any idea where the pain is centered? I don’t want to quit benching/pressing as I’m making great progress, and those lifts don’t seem to hurt while doing them. However, I do notice increased irritation after benching especially.
Sure, it could be exclusively related to your squat grip - but it’s unclear from your history whether the pain has continued to worsen since your grip change or not.
The random pains and night time pain is unusual. The physical exam maneuver you’re describing is the Apley scratch test for adduction/internal rotation, though the location of your pain is a bit unusual.
If it’s improving since your grip change, great. I’d certainly get your form checked on the bench, and consider adjusting programming depending on whether you think high frequency, volume, or intensity primarily irritate it, or potentially to choose a different bench variant if you can find one that allows you to avoid a painful ROM or feels better (e.g., pin bench, slingshot, etc.).
Thanks for the reply. Random pain occurs when I move my arm in certain ways, like maybe lifting my arm to swat at gnat buzzing around my face. Today I opened my rear car door to toss a 10lb tool bag into the back seat. Pain shot through my shoulder. I then picked it up and tried to lift it straight out in front of me with an extended arm, and that was quite painful. I also did my press workout yesterday, and while it didn’t hurt during the workout itself my shoulder has been snarky all day today.
The squat grip has always been tight before changing. I’ve been squatting with an overhand grip for 10 months now. Only changed to underhand grip 2’ish weeks ago. Shoulder is no better or worse. My shoulder honestly started hurting sometime during my first run of the Bridge. I’m in week 4 of the Bridge 2.0 right now. So basically I worked out for 10 months (SSLP for 3 months, then 7’ish months of various H/L Split or HLM workouts) with no issue.
I don’t know that volume of the Bridge is the culprit. I think CGB might have helped aggrivate my shoulders, as I was keeping my elbows tight in to my torso, and lowering the weight too low on the torso, bottom of the sternum at best, if not a tad lower. The overhand squat grip now is just a problem due to the shoulder, so I don’t know that this caused it.
As for history, I wanted to be Arnold in my early 20’s. Followed his routines, and pressed wide, along with all kinds of flys and other things. My right shoulder was very painful back then, but the pain went away after years of not training. At 45 now, I was thinking it was gone for good up until a few weeks back when I just started noticing it hurting.
Gosh I don’t want to quit training. Just not sure what adjustments to make. Outside of CGB (which I’ve given up), I think my form is good but I guess I can submit a check. I bought a Slingshot, and it hurts even worse with that.
Thanks in advance for any tips. I apologize as I didn’t mean to create a post this long.
You may well be experiencing a rotator cuff syndrome. This doesn’t really sound like the symptoms of AC or glenohumeral osteoarthritis. I’ve not seen close-grip bench cause shoulder issues before, so who knows if/how that’s related.
No one is suggesting (and certainly not recommending) that you quit training, as that is essentially never the solution. I’ll be making a video soon about my basic approach to injury rehab, but the gist of it is that you need to find:
A weight that you can lift on the primary movement without pain; if you can’t do this,
Find a ROM you can move through on the primary movement without pain; if you can’t do this,
Find a variant on the primary lift that you can perform without pain, then start over at step 1.
That makes sense, and I think I stumbled upon this on Friday, which was my bench variation day. All bench variations are painful for some reason, even at lighter weight. I tried light CGB too and it was painful, so I wound up doing a moderate grip regular bench, deloaded by about 20% from my typical 5-rep weight. I then did them at an almost tempo pace of about 3-1-1. I wouldn’t describe what I felt as pain, but there is a certain spot about 2 inches off the chest on the way down where there is a slight pain, enough to make me be ginger with it, and then the same when I reverse the weight. But it’s doable and doesn’t feel bad. Today my shoulder feels better though still tender. I think I just need to take it easy like you say.
I’m going to use your steps to figure this out. My bench was just starting to get respectable (for me). Perhaps I’ve been pushing too hard in retrospect.
Yeah, I see now where you’ve been dealing with this for 2 years in your log. I might not be sane if I have to wait that long. Thanks for all the help, and godspeed on your recovery also!