What's up, guys?
Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.com.
Today I think I'm going to have an incredibly helpful video for lots of people because shoulder
pain when bench-pressing is something that plagues a lot of people.
I’m not saying you're unable to do the bench-press, because what's ironic about this condition
is that we tend to keep pushing through the bench-press, even though we have some pain
or discomfort on every, single rep.
Now, if you look at me doing the bench-press here, you might say to yourself "Yeah, I get
pain."
But where?
You can identify the different point in the range.
Do you feel it more here at the bottom?
Or do you feel more of that twinge and discomfort when you get a little bit away from the bottom,
toward midrange?
Or maybe some people even feel it here, at the very end.
Guys, I'm going to tell you this: it doesn’t really matter where you're feeling it.
There are different structures that are responsible for those different points in that range of
motion where you're feeling pain.
But guess what?
You shouldn't be feeling pain at all when you bench-press.
But I have something that you need to focus on that might be different than what you're
focusing on now.
We tend to focus on the structure.
I've shown you guys here before, there are a lot of structures in the shoulder in the
bench-press.
We have different things that can get pinched on a bench-press.
We could get the bursae that lays over the top of the shoulder.
Less frequently, but it can happen.
We get the biceps tendon that lies in here that could get pinched either at the bottom
because we entre into internal rotation here at the bottom of the bench-press.
Or even as we start to approach the end where that bicep tendon can get pinched in there.
Which could also cause come labrum discomfort.
Or you get the rotator cuff that gets pinched inside here, due to impingement.
Most likely here at the bottom.
And because of its role in stability, that initiation of the press from the bottom is
where that unstable rotator cuff is going to come in and really become problematic.
But guess what?
Again, it doesn't matter where you're feeling it.
The issue is that you're feeling it.
I don’t like to blame the structure because if you had the stability in the shoulder you
can offset even a damaged structure.
I'm going to say that again.
If the stability was there, even a damaged structure would be protected because we know
that one of the main roles that your body is supposed to have, in terms of the entire
balance of the muscle of the shoulder is you should have a centralized humerus here.
Meaning, it should stay centralized in the ball-and-socket.
No matter how you move your arm around.
It shouldn’t migrate up and start to pinch any of those structures.
That's what happens.
What needs to happen instead is that you have the best stability in place to do this.
So, here's a test for you.
Anybody that has shoulder pain, do the following.
Go grab – as you see me doing here – a lighter set of dumbbells.
About half as much as what you would normally used for a 10 to 12 rep set.
First things first, pinch your shoulder blades together.
Create some stability.
Get your shoulder blades together, and down, and back, and initiate that, and hold that
throughout the entire repetition.
Now, start to press.
When you press, look at how slow I'm pressing.
I want you to literally be mindful of every, single inch of the press.
The goal is zero pain.
Absolutely zero pain.
To be able to press every inch, and be able to monitor, at any given point, do you feel
any discomfort or pain?
I'm going to guarantee something pretty phenomenally.
For 98% of you, when you have shoulder pain when you bench-press, when you perform it
this way; you're not going to feel any discomfort or pain.
Why?
Because you've just placed stability at the forefront of the exercise.
You're not focused on the weight you're pressing.
You're not focused on just getting the weight off your chest.
You're focusing, first and foremost, on the stability of the shoulder joint as you press.
By forcing you to slow down and be mindful of every, single inch in that repetition.
The side benefit of this is a high degree of tension placed – where?
Actually, on the pecs.
As opposed to just trying to heave this off your body.
What is the utilization of this?
Why is this useful?
Number one, as I've said, it works as a test.
As a diagnostic.
Does it mean you don’t have anything wrong in your shoulder?
You probably do.
If you're getting some pain, you might have something wrong in your shoulder.
But it's not necessarily that structure that's causing the pain.
When you slow it down and you stabilize that, you're able to protect that injured structure
with that stability.
Meaning, regardless of what the issue is here, you can still press without pain because of
the stability that's protecting that structure.
So, what you would do is, if you have bench press pain, you've got to slow it down.
You've got to back it up a couple of notches.
You've got to be willing to drop the weight down and work on being able to press pain-free
while you work on rehabbing and going back over the weaknesses that cause that.
Where the instability starts to rear its head is when this painful structure starts to become
a problem.
So if you do your scap work, if you do your rotator cuff work, if you do your freakin'
face-pulls; you can work on correcting that without continuing to re-aggravate the inflammation
in here from working through the pain on that press.
As you just saw, guys.
I promise, like I said, 98%.
You do not have to have the pain when you're pressing.
You don’t.
You'll feel it here.
Another thing you can do is try to let the ego drop a little bit and work on building
up that strength with stability by starting at – let's say I was using 40lbs and then
go to 45lbs, and 50lbs, and 55lbs, and 60lbs and work my way up.
Again, not tolerating even a single inch of pain in that range of motion.
You work your strength up that way and you start to build the solid foundation as you're
working on getting rid of that long-term problem that's here in your shoulder.
But don’t be so quick to judge that this is the problem.
That your labrum, your AC joint, the bursae, the rotator cuff tendon; that this is the
reason why you can't bench-press pain-free.
No, it's because you don’t have the stability to do it and protect that structure while
you're trying to work on it and get it better.
Guys, I hope you've found this video helpful.
It is, again, something very enlightening when you go to try this because a lot of people
– lots of people – have some sort of pain in their shoulder when they bench-press.
A lot of you are now going to be able to do that pain-free.
Just by slowing it down and being mindful of it.
If you're looking for programs where we build in the science behind what we do – because,
as you're going to see right here, the science matters.
Explaining the differences here makes a whole hell of a lot of difference in how this exercise
feels.
It can have the same effect on everything you do.
All our programs are over at ATHLEANX.com.
If you found the video helpful, leave your comments and thumbs up below.
Let me know what else you want me to cover and I'll do my best to do that for you in
the weeks ahead.
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All right, guys.
See you soon.