Well fellas, for those of you who haven't been following the soap opera called, "0311 is screwed from birth", I have a minor pec tear of my left pectoralis. I got it from flat barbell pressing. I've been successfully benching for the past 9 years without a problem, with a max of 405x2 back in September.
But, I consider myself very lucky. In case anyone's wondering, I was only pressing 325 for (3x5). Nothing near my max. The first set of 5 was nothing..After doing 8 warmup/acclimation sets. My second set, about the third rep, I felt a wierd ripping sensation. It wasn't painful whatsoever, and I can describe it like pulling the fat off of chicken when preparing it. My doctor described what happened like this: Picture having 50 rubber bands that are all in line stretched out. Now take a pair of scissors and cut 5 of them. Those cut bands are now balled up. The good news is that since my chest is good to go aside from a piece of my lower chest, over time it'll reconnect and heal.
Here's a pic:
http://www.savefile.com/files/8026774
Now, why do I consider myself lucky? Since my tear, I've been doing a ton of research into pec tears with Pub Med, ect. In EVERY case of a actual pec tear (which is rare to begin with), the cause was accredited to the FLAT barbell bench press. Coincidence?....Maybe, maybe not. Either way, it's a measure of risk vs. reward. So I now ask myself, can I still keep growing out my chest without flat barbell?...Yup. From now on, the only flat pressing I'm going to do is with dumbbells. Lesson learned. I'd honestly be too scared to try flat pressing again, worried about retearing my pecs.
I'm posting this just to make sure everyone at least learns from what happened to me. I'm NOT saying to dump flat barbell pressing!..Like I said, I had a good run of heavy flat pressing for over 9 years. What I am saying is to keep in the back of your minds to listen to your body when doing this exercise. My first set of 5 reps felt very tight in my outer pec area. I didn't listen and now I'm screwed for the next month (at least).
Here's a quote from Dante that sums this subject up:
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Dante
I have hit on this subject so many times now--ill just put it like this. There is no other exercise that has ended more weight lifting careers IMO than this one. Regardless of that fact for some people it does incredible things. So I draw a middle road here. WHAT DO YOU PERSONALLY WANT TO DO? Is it such a beneficial exercise for you that your willing to take the risk of possible tearing the pec muscle and disfiguring yourself for life? (unlike tearing the pec tendon where you can make a pretty good recovery but will still take you out of your game for 6-12 months). So I try to compromise and keep people safe by saying "train with or have a powerlifter teach you how to do the exercise correctly and safely-which isnt the iron cross method every gym joe rat uses but rather the elbows angling downward and chest really high method"--with that try to keep in a 20-30rp rep range if possible, 10+6+4 will get the job done and hopefully keep injury at bay.
What pissed me off once was some guy was rest pausing bench presses on another site in the 11-15 range and really hurt his shoulder bad. Now any other type of training he would of done he would of said "Man I screwed up my shoulder royally bench pressing, this sucks"---Can you guess what his thread title was? "INJURED USING DC TRAINING"...and his post was along the lines of "any of you other bro's get injured doing DC training?" .....No you got injured doing the flat barbell bench press. And I say that to anyone here. You can do what you want exercise wise but if you tear your pec, guess what? YOU and only you made that choice to use flat BB press. You might get 2 inches of thickness and no pec tears or torn rotator cuffs from the exercise. More power to you. Or you might end up with a look in your left pec that visually is like someone took a shovel and took a huge chunk out of it if you tear it. Either way remember you weighed the benefit to risk and you alone made your choice and I hope it works out for you
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I'm going to try like hell to post a pic tonight of my bruising.
My plan now is to go to physical therapy, keep blasting legs twice a week, and cardio in-between. Resting and eating Vicodin on a per day basis.
EDIT: I've just reread this whole thread and I don't see anything about the Superdrol I was taking at the time. By far and large, I'm pretty certain the SD was the only thing I've done any differently in my nine years lifting...It isn't a coincidence that I'm not the only one listing a tear as a side effect from the SD neither..
