cant bench press!

[zapedy]

i think i have tennis or golfers elbow thats not getting any better even after given ages to rest. it only gives my trouble when bench pressing - everything else seems fine.
Just wondering if anyone has routines that skip out the bench press they wanna share??
Concerned my routine could become v.unbalanced!

 

[NJ-Surfer]

You can also try different degrees of incline. Sometimes changing the incline on the bench can take stress of off certain joints.

 

[weldingman]

wouldnt be bad to wrap your elbow and keep benching and see if that helps. then eventually u might can take it off

 

[Pedigree]

If you have access to a thick bar, they can alleviate a lot of stress on the wrist, elbow and shoulder joints.

 

[PushAndPull]

You can also try different degrees of incline. Sometimes changing the incline on the bench can take stress of off certain joints.

Agreed, substituting dumbbells for the barbell is also worth a try.

 

[Gazhole]

Its unlikely your routine will become unbalanced by dropping bench. Put some more rows in or something, most people dont do enough back work anyway.

On the other hand, if your elbow is that bad it might be time for a week off.

 

[NateJohnson3]

If you have access to a thick bar, they can alleviate a lot of stress on the wrist, elbow and shoulder joints.

def, i wish my gym would get one

 

[Hoglander]

Cute

Seems abnormal that tendonitis in the elbow would only hurt bench. You should have made up rotator cuff BS.

 

[PushAndPull]

Seems abnormal that tendonitis in the elbow would only hurt bench.

Agreed

 

[maturemuscle]

Try a narrowing your grip, this will bring your elbows in closer to your body and bring more triceps into the movement,.

 

[HDHITman]

My advice

My advice would be to drop the Barbell Bench Press entirely, I have never did the flat bench in my whole training career and I have a great set of pecs. But if you must bench I would suggest you move toward doing it on a Hammer Strength Press. Another option drop it from your program forever, it did not hurt my development. If you do that then I would use a combination of BB/DB/Hammer Strength Decline Presses, BB/DB/Hammer Strength Incline Presses, Chest Dips, and for isolation work keep to machine flyes or cable flyes. Also another good method to use is pre-exhaustion on your chest days.

Here is an example of my chest workout:

Cable Flyes 1x6-10
Decline Press 1x1-3
Hammer Strength Incline Press 1x4-8

The first two movements are done in superset fashion always with minimal rest between in either a pre-exhaust fashion or post-activation fashion. I follow Heavy Duty High Intensity Training created by Mike Mentzer so that is why such low volume.

The first way it is written would be in pre-exhaustion fashion, the example that follows rewrites it in the post-activation fashion:

Decline Press 1x6-8
Cable Flyes 1x6-10
Hammer Strength Incline Press 1x4-8

Hope these suggestions help, but I would give pre-exhaustion a try, you wont be able to press as much as before but it will definetly save your joints and it doesnt hurt to check your form once in awhile.
If you need help finding info on pre-exhaustion just google it or type it in a search on bodybuilding.com

Daron
The Heavy Duty HITman