Is the barbell bench press too injury prone?

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I'm 43, decided to get back on the barbell after being exclusive to dumbbells over the past 10 years. I noticed the more constricted movement of the barbell is causing pain in my shoulders. I always warm up my shoulders with face pulls. I haven't noticed this pain when doing DB BP. Could I be doing something wrong or does it come with the territory with my age?

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could be a bunch of things, mainly could be from form

but if they hurt, stop doing them. plenty of other horizontal press variations you can do like db bench/incline etc

many do have problems with barbell bench though and other than as a power movement its not the best for anything. feel free to do other variations.

if you wanna do barbell bench, start doing broomstick dislocates and then go to the facepulls then when you bench...retract the scaps(shoulder blades) and dont flair elbows. can also try a bosu ball under your upper back to allow some free movement of the scaps during the movemnet.

general rule of thumb though...if it hurts...dont do it.

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I'm 43, decided to get back on the barbell after being exclusive to dumbbells over the past 10 years. I noticed the more constricted movement of the barbell is causing pain in my shoulders. I always warm up my shoulders with face pulls. I haven't noticed this pain when doing DB BP. Could I be doing something wrong or does it come with the territory with my age?

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Likely bad form. Gotta arch.

Try tucking your elbows in towards your sides. It relieves some of the stress off of the shoulders.

I’m over 40, my solution:

-Get my volume with DB’s
-Get my intensity with Bar

I’ll do ramp up sets of 10 with DBs and then hit triples with bar. I’ll work up to a heavy 3 on bar and call it a day.

I find I can still lift heavy, but not get sore.

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move that we have evolved to need to do

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We’re evolved to sit around and conserve energy, because who knows when the next meal will come. If you think of bench press as a movement where you lay down and push something up and down, you’re doing it wrong. It’s absolutely a full body movement. Back, legs, chest, triceps, abs.

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I don’t think it’s a move that we have evolved to need to do. In other words, how often, if you were a person in the wild, would you need to be utilizing strength in the same fashion as that which is required in a barbell bench?
If we haven’t evolved to do it then you will likely be setting yourself up for injury.

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so you dont think a horizontal push is a functional movement?

so you never pushed another human or some object away from you?

and the reason why flat barbell bench can be hard on the shoulders, besides mobility issues, is because your shoulder blade aka scaps, are fixed in place. this can tend to put many in a position where you are setting yourself up for labrum tear or impingement.

this can be fixed in a variety of ways but the 1st way to help is to retract the scaps and keep elbows tucked

2nd is programming

for those that mentioned having a possible torn labrum look at the crossover symmetry program. the shuolder repair program works wonders for most


and for the record...90% of people that have shoulder problems are because of internal rotation and a tight chest as a result. this can be fixed/greatly improved wihtin a month simply by doing 25-50 broomstick dislocates a day.

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so you dont think a horizontal push is a functional movement?

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You see a lot of gorillas and monkeys with massive chests relative to shoulders, back and triceps? Didn’t think so.

Not saying it should be neglected but it’s wildly over emphasized.

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Also wrong. I mean, I use my legs and abs doing dumbbell curls. Doesn’t make them a full body movement

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wow

good luck with your "functional" workouts.

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Maybe you should look up the definition of functional.

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or maybe you should learn to understand movement patterns and not just listen to what they tell you at the box

bench is a horizontal push, being supported has nothing to do with it. its a basic horizontal push period. why did it become popular...because its the easist to progressively overload unlike something like a weighted pushup.

everytime you push something away from you or get up off the ground etc...you are using the horizontal pushing motion.

same reason why if you are looking to build muscle and really strength in a vertical pressing movement...you should eventually move to a seated supported variation of the press that removes the stability aspect some.



and we 100% evolved to conserve energy. because we evolved to be the best at runnign long distance. they would sit around and then stalk prey until the prey collapsed. or they would sit around and then spring a trap on the prey.