Shoulder injury and rehab

[Iced696]

Originally Posted by iron_worker

Well if you're talking about static stretches then that is a good thing. While increasing your ROM, static stretching also decreases your muscles strength which actually encourages injuries. However, dynamic stretching and warmups with light weight are always a very good idea. Warmups should also not just be "light" it should move through the range of weights that you will be lifting so as to acclimate you body to lifting heavy. Obviously you should keep the volume very low when the weights get nearer to your actual lift so as not to burn out before your actual sets.

IronWorker

Very well stated.

[Iced696]

Originally Posted by Andrew.cook

Certainly listen to your PT.

some other things you can discuss with him are prehab (work that you do to keep your shoulders healthy, even after the pain goes away) and if you can manage it, I would put more focus on vertical pressing, military presses and the likes. This movement does a much better job of stabilizing your shoulders and strengthening the entire shoulder girdle than bench press (which can be problematic to the shoulders).

You're right. Jeff Everson did an article about 5 years ago on the long term problems he has suffered because of years of heavy benching. I am suffering those same type of problems now. Sometimes getting older means going lighter for a very different reason. But working out is not something I will ever give up. I think that working out, like a lot of other things is a bug that you keep for life.

[Iced696]

Sorry to hijack your thread antwan. Back to the subject at hand...

[Andrew.cook]

Originally Posted by Iced696

You're right. Jeff Everson did an article about 5 years ago on the long term problems he has suffered because of years of heavy benching. I am suffering those same type of problems now. Sometimes getting older means going lighter for a very different reason. But working out is not something I will ever give up. I think that working out, like a lot of other things is a bug that you keep for life.

The bench press isn't "terrible" by any means. Most of the issues that arise come from people being prolific benchers, and... very little else The imbalances that develop are probably the biggest contributing factor to injuries. Americans (and maybe people everywhere) have this weird obsession with benching. I've been there, and done that. I can remember my high school years being a virtual bench pressing machine. Now that I am older and wiser (at least by some small margin, wiser) I have all but given up on the bench press. Currently I hit the bench once a month, never going for a maximal effort. For chest work I stick with pushups and dips at this stage. Will that make me a world class bench presser? Nope. In fact I can tell you that my bench press max has dropped a good bit.

Going forward, if someone wanted to bench, I think that considerable attention needs to be paid at building great stability in the shoulder girdle. Rows, overhead pressing, prehab movements, etc. At the point where your shoulder girdle recieves proper attention, benching should be fairly pain/injury free. How much and what kind of attention will be very individual.

[Iced696]

True, but I do believe my early obsession with the bench press could, without question, be classified as prolific, if not obsessed.

But definately well stated AC.