Why does my shoulder hurt during the bench press?

Shoulder pain during bench press is one of the most common issues in the gym.

If you feel a sharp or aching pain at the front of your shoulder when pressing, you’re not alone. The good news? Most cases aren’t serious – and you don’t need to stop bench pressing completely.

The classic example is someone feels a sharp pain at the front of the shoulder – worst at the bottom of the press. Other movements like rows feel fine.

It often feels like and labelled as an impingement, rotator cuff tear or bursitis.

It sounds mental, but impingement actually happens in everyone! Every time you elevate your arm there is some form of impingement happening in the shoulder. Whether or not it is painful often depends on how sensitive the structures in the shoulder are. Therefore a better way to look at it: Load > Capacity causing sensitivity.

Load = what you’re doing/have been doing

Capacity = what your shoulder can tolerate.

The goal in rehab – slowly build up load so slowly build up your capacity.

So does this mean stop bench pressing? Not necessarily. The beauty of the bench press is we can change so many factors to make it more comfortable again.

• Lighter weights

• Limited range of motion

• Isometrics

• Smith machine instead of dumbbells/barbells

• Reduced sets/reps/frequency.

• Elbows more narrow vs elbows more wide.

• Wide grip vs narrow grip.

Any variation that is tolerable will do. Your goal is to just gradually progress the above towards the type of bench press you are wanting to get back to.

If even just the movement unweighted hurts, then maybe we need to give the bench press a small break temporarily.

In this time, we make every other movement around the shoulder strong. Particularly internal and external rotation, as well as shoulder flexion and abduction. What does this mean?

Apply the above factors to a:

• Cable shoulder external and internal rotation
• Front raise
• Lateral raise

Now we have a complete shoulder program keeping you generally strong. As you improve, we inch closer and closer to that 100kg bench press you have been working on!