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.
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