Rotator Cuffs

Bigger Stronger Leaner Competitive Bodybuilding
1

I used to never have problems with my shoulders, but recently something has been hurting randomly. I recently upped my volume to 2 shoulder sessions a week, along with 2 different days that include benching, so they’ve been getting a lot more stress that usual. The pain feels deeper in the shoulder than just the exterior muscle, so i’m assuming it’s my rotator cuffs. Anyone else have this problem? How did you resolve it? Thanks -Blaze

2

RC or could be your AC joint since your benching so much now. One of the most obvious ways to resolve it is to stop putting so much pressure on it, by increasing the lifts like you have. Your shoulders are with you for life so its a good idea to take care of 'em. Make sure to start including exercises to strengthen your RC and other smaller muscles in your shoulder (search here or Google).

I just got over a bad AC joint injury, and there was a mix of things that helped. I had to eliminate upright rows, dips, and heavy DB bench (going was past 90 degrees) all of which are exercises that can cause impingement, try to find the ones that do in your workouts. Also, I made sure to do the exercises for the smaller muscles in my shoulders (yea they suck and there not as “cool” as reping on the bench, but they are more important). If your benching (doing chest) twice a week, you have to make sure your doing an equal or greater amount of back, to keep your balance, because muscle imbalance can also magnify these problems. Lastly, giving my shoulders enough time to recover also helped, and if they were extra sore, I give 'em an extra day, extra fish oil, and extra Advil.

See what works for you, but its pretty obvious that what you have added has caused the problem, or magnified one that was already there. Look around at info about AC joint injuries and impingement, because that’s probably whats going on with you.

3

Think about

  1. Increasing your horizontal pulling
  2. Having a rest
  3. performing/doing more external rotations and scap work work
  4. see someone in the real work who has been educated to resolve weighlifting injuries
4

I do equal horizontal pulling to my benching. They never really feel sore. I’ve never had delt doms or whatnot. Just a slight pain with certain motions. I’ve started doing rotator cuffs exercises any time i’m going to do a pressing motion. I don’t do upright rows because i had heard they were tough on the shoulders. I did recently start doing dips, and might cut them, which is a shame as I really feel them.

5

2 shoulder days, and 2 bench days you said you know this is stressing it and your still doing it? Then your asking why?

6

A good rule to follow is to do 2x as much backwork as chestwork. Personally I do face pulls and external rotation work everytime I do chestwork

7

[quote]Airtruth wrote:
2 shoulder days, and 2 bench days you said you know this is stressing it and your still doing it? Then your asking why? [/quote]

I know it’s stressing it. What i’m getting at is whether or not i can add in rotator exercises and maintain this same volume. If not, I’ll likely drop one of the shoulder days and just work traps that day.

8

[quote]saps wrote:
A good rule to follow is to do 2x as much backwork as chestwork. Personally I do face pulls and external rotation work everytime I do chestwork[/quote]

Hmmm. I hit chest/tri twice a week and back/bi twice a week. However, I only actually do one form of bench per chest workout, and at least two horizontal pulls on back. So i think I’m fine in that regard.