Causes of shoulder injuries during strength training

Author: Timko Ilya - master of the whole project and fitness trainer.
2013-03-05

Let's take a look at the main factors leading to shoulder injuries and how to avoid them. After all, the overwhelming majority of people training in gyms sooner or later face this problem.

The main exercises that pose a potential danger to your shoulders are:

As you can see, all these exercises work the chest. But, for some reason, it's the shoulder that gets injured :) The thing is, the chest muscle is attached to the crest of the greater tubercle of the humerus. Simply put, to the shoulder. Therefore, in case of a chest tendon injury, it is the shoulder that starts to ache and hurt.

By the way, exercises specifically targeting the shoulders are relatively safe for them. Of course, being careless, you can hurt yourself in various ways. But I will only discuss common cases.

So, the main cause of shoulder injuries is improper technique when performing chest exercises.

And the leading position here goes to:

There is a so-called "chest style" of this exercise. This is when the elbows are spread as wide as possible, and the barbell is lowered closer to the neck. In this variation, the chest muscles are maximally engaged. This means the chest tendons also experience a very significant load.

I am not against this bench press variation. But people often forget that it's designed for lighter weights (starting from 8 repetitions) and try to push maximum weight this way. From session to session, the chest tendon undergoes enormous stress. Eventually, persistent dull pain in the shoulder develops.

The same principle applies to push-ups. But here the risk is much lower because people rarely perform push-ups with heavy weights for only a few reps.

When doing dips in the "chest style," the elbows are also spread wide apart. Additionally, if you go too low, the shoulder tendons get excessively stretched. Personally, I avoid the "chest variation" in both bench presses and dips precisely because of the high risk of shoulder injuries.

For dumbbell flys, the speed of execution of the exercise is very important. It should be smooth. Even if your trajectory is correct, but the dumbbells drop uncontrollably, you risk injuring your shoulder. By the way, this applies to all the above-mentioned exercises.

Conclusions

Strengthening the shoulder muscles offers little protection against injuries, unlike the lower back. Here, the main challenge lies in proper execution technique. And this specifically concerns chest exercises. Too much emphasis on the chest and uncontrolled lowering of the weight are the key technical elements that later lead to persistent aching pain in the shoulder.

If your shoulder starts to hurt, you need to stop doing all exercises that cause pain. As a rule, the pain subsides within two to three weeks. After that, you can return to previous exercises, changing your technique and reducing the weights. If you ignore the pain and continue as before, it will only get worse (as practice shows).