TL;DR Version –
- The exercise is not to blame it’s usually how you do it.
- Injury rates in the shoulder are common in weight training bench press or not.
- Arch your back!
- Keep the bar straight and your elbows under
- Never struggle unless it’s a true RM and a one off
- Strengthen the rotator cuffs and lower traps (3 reps of back for every bench press rep)
- Don’t neglect the shoulders
Bench Press is gonna snap your shit up! Goodbye sweet labrum, rotator cuffs and shoulder girdle may you rest in peace – said anyone who took one glance at the movement being performed by someone and used inductive reasoning to arrive at an anecdotal conclusion.
Bench press much like guns, when used incorrectly can cause you serious self harm. It doesn’t mean you have scream and run away when someone mentions the name, you just need to know how to approach it and not misuse it.
Don’t point a pistol to your foot pull the trigger then blame the pistol. Guns don’t kill people, rappers do….
What are the common sins of bench press that end up with people in snap city?
- Benching with a flat back and incorrect form
- Benching with a lot of frequency (combined with bad form)
- Benching close to failure on a regular basis (combined with bad form)
- Not performing enough strengthening work for the shoulder girdle (combined with bad form)
- Not performing a majority of pulling work in their upperbody programme.
Most people do a mixture of these things and end up with a bum shoulder, top be honest your shoulder is probably going to get injured even if you don’t bench press so do you want a big chest and a sore shoulder or a small chest and a sore shoulder?
How injurious is the bench press?
Click for larger version – Source
- Powerlifting has a low rate of injury 1 to 2 injuries per 1000 hours of training
- 20-35% of these injuries are sustained to the shoulder.
- These tend to be chronic in nature (tendonitis, arthritis, etc)
- Weightlifting has a similar injury rate (3.3 per 1000 hours of training) a large portion of which are sustained to the shoulder.
Epidemiological reports cite the shoulder complex as a primary region of injury with prevalence rates ranging from 22% to 36% (27,36,41). Keogh et al. (36) investigated injury patterns using a retrospectively survey of competitive Oceania weightlifters (n = 101). In their study, the shoulder complex comprised 36% of all reported injuries and was the region most often affected. Goertzen et al. (27) investigated both period and point prevalence of injuries in subjects (n = 358) who participated in RT and reported the shoulder complex to be the most prevalent region of injury at 34%. Konig and Biener (41) surveyed the athletic population on past injuries because of weight lifting and found that of the reported injuries 22% were at the shoulder complex.
The key points are as follows: (a) Incorporating exercises to strengthen the lower trapezius and external rotators may serve to mitigate common strength imbalances associated with RT. (b) Flexibility exercises designed to increase internal rotation and improve posterior shoulder flexibility are recommended to avoid shoulder disorders and provide balanced joint mobility. (c) Avoiding the true “high-five” position (Figure 1A) with basic technique modifications may serve useful in preventing more common RT-induced shoulder disorders.
Shoulder Injuries Attributed to Resistance Training: A Brief Review
High five position in all it’s glory.
It appears if your a powerlifter, weightlifter or general weight trainer than we all have an equal chance of snapping up the shoulder girdle and since we all train completely differently maybe we shouldn’t go and point the finger so quickly at bench press. After all it only wants you to get more hench.
What are the bench press technical errors I need to avoid to increase safety?
- Going into high five range that is allowing your elbow to travel to far past your torso (i.e. don’t lie flat on the bench)
- Allow free movement of the scapula (i.e. don’t lie flat on the bench)
- Don’t touch too high up the chest (i.e. keep your elbows under the bar at all times)
- Don’t touch too low down the sternum (i.e. keep your elbows under the bar at all times)
- Don’t let your form break down too much (i.e. don’t go to failure or allow it to get messy)
Good bottom position
Bad bottom position.
Besides not benching wrong what else can I do to keep my shoulders from exploding?
There are a number of things you can do to stop your shoulders from getting chewed up doing the king of upperbody pressing exercises they are as follows
- For every bench press rep perform 3 strict back reps (if I perform 50 reps of working weight for bench press I will perform 150 reps with working weight using pulling motions).
- Perform a full rotator cuff strengthening programme.
- Give your body some breathing space – mandate 36-48 hours between bench press sessions.
- Don’t neglect your shoulder strength (perform shoulder pressing and strengthening exercise 1-2x per week I prefer dumbbell high rep work).
- DONT LIFT TO FAILURE ON A REGULAR BASIS! Keep your reps looking smooth and your shoulder’s will thank you.
Example “safe” bench pressing template
Session 1 (tuesday)
A – Paused Bench Press – 6 sets of 3 @ 80% of 1RM (18 working reps)
B – Bench row or Seated Row – 5 sets of 5 @ 80% 1RM (25 working reps)
C – DB shoulder press – 3 sets of 10 to 15 reps
D – Lat pulldown – 5 sets of 10 (50 working reps)
E – External rotator and long head biceps strengthening circuit (ext rotations, cuban press, palms up plate raise – 3 laps of 10 reps)
Session 2 (thursday)
A – Paused Bench Press – 5 sets of 5 @ 75% of 1RM (25 working reps)
B – Chin up or Pull up (chest to bar) – 5 sets of 5 @ 80% 1RM (25 working reps)
C – DB Side and Lat Raise – 3 sets of 10 to 15 reps
D – Lat pulldown – 5 sets of 8 (40 working reps)
E – External rotator and long head biceps strengthening circuit (ext rotations, cuban press, palms up plate raise – 3 laps of 8 reps)
Session 3 (saturday)
A – Paused Bench Press – 7 sets of 2 @ 85% of 1RM (14 working reps)
B – Bench row or Seated Row – 5 sets of 5 @ 80% 1RM (25 working reps)
C – High incline DB Press – 3 sets of 10 to 15 reps
D – Lat pulldown – 5 sets of 10 (50 working reps)
E – External rotator and long head biceps strengthening circuit (ext rotations, cuban press, palms up plate raise – 4 laps of 6 reps)
In conclusion
- The exercise is not to blame it’s usually how you do it.
- Injury rates in the shoulder are common in weight training bench press or not.
- Arch your back!
- Keep the bar straight and your elbows under
- Never struggle unless it’s a true RM and a one off
- Strengthen the rotator cuffs and lower traps (3 reps of back for every bench press rep)
- Don’t neglect the shoulders
- How much you bench?
Marc
