I have had some pretty chronic pain in both of my shoulders for quite a few months.  They basically are sore all the time, especially when I am raising my arms above shoulder height.  To be honest I never gave much thought to the pain since it isn’t debilitating at this point.  It is just one of those things I have worked through and kind of written off as just getting older.

Well last week when I picked up some used furniture from a guy he told me how he had just had shoulder surgery.  I asked him how he hurt his shoulder, bench press was his answer.  Well that of all things is what got me thinking.

In the past I had hurt my shoulder playing volleyball.  The injury made bench pressing basically impossible for 6 months or more until it eventually got better.  Well I started wondering if my current chronic shoulder pain is from chest exercises, specifically all of the push ups I do.

It’s a weird correlation because while doing push ups I don’t feel pain in my shoulders, yet I have a strong suspicion that the movement is what is causing the shoulder pain.  I am pretty sure I have a muscular imbalance between the front and back of my shoulders.  The front portion sees a ton more work than the back portion.

So anyway, to test the theory I am laying off all push ups and chest pushing exercises for a week, maybe two.  I think I will stay off the dip bars too which can work the area as well.

I hope to instead hit my pull ups hard during this time period, perhaps setting a new best in pull up reps which currently sits at 22.  I also need to pay more attention to working my rear delts on a regular basis to hopefully help keep things in my shoulder on a more normal keel.