Pain when benching?

[Nyisles2004]

Hey guys, when i was benching today for flat and decline I had some pain in my tricep area(just above the elbow, on the backside). It was more noticeable when my grip was closer. It happend only when i was coming down with the bar, not when i was coming up or after i benched. Does anyone have any guesses what it could be, is it possible my grip is off in some way?

 

[DimebagDarrell]

how far apart are your hands? the closer together they are, the more benching will work the triceps. it may be that your triceps are just too weak for that much weight.

 

[Nyisles2004]

i barely do any weight though, at 70 pds i felt pain... I'm not starting with much.

 

[Squaggleboggin]

Well it's really how much weight you're doing relative to your maximum capabilities. Example: Me benching 180 lbs is much more difficult than Coleman benching 180 lbs, thus putting much more strain on my body, and it is much more likely that I would get injured than it is for him to get injured. I'm sure you already realized this, but how much weight do you usually do and how much can you do maximum?

 

[Nyisles2004]

I've never done a "max", but im guessing i could hit about 90 pds or so 1 or 2 times? i lifted on the incline bench 80 pds about 5 times, with no pain. then i moved over to the flat bench started with 65 pds and started getting pain right above my elbow when i was coming down, just out of nowhere it seemed like. I've had this pain a few times when ive done tricep extensions too(behind the head). This is affecting me, cause i can do more but if i get pain in the middle i stop doing the reps.

 

[Squaggleboggin]

Have you had any injuries to your arm or shoulder that you're not absolutely positive healed 100%?

 

[Nyisles2004]

never ever injured anything in my arm or shoulder.

 

[Squaggleboggin]

Personally, I would stop doing anything that bothers your arm. Completely. I recently had a shoulder injury, and I didn't work out anything with arms for about a week, then I tried to slowly go back into it and just work through the pain. That didn't work and actually made it worse. So my advice to you would be to at least call your doctor and ask about it, and stop doing anything that bothers it until you see him/her.

 

[ZAGLOBA]

It's triceps tendonitis. I have it in my triceps right now.

 

[Nyisles2004]

Zag how can i get rid of it? And im not getting surgery. The pain is only during the exercise, im pretty good when im not doing that positon with my tricep.

 

[rangers97]

Definitely tendinitis....It is something that really won't ever go away without lots of rest. I saw doctors and sports medicine people about mine, and they told me to just rest, which of course I did not do, so they still bother me from time to time.

You need to learn to adjust your workout to find exercises that don't make it worse or hurt the elbow. For me, that means no tricep isolation exercises like skullcrushers or and cable pushdowns or whatever. I have also had to alter my form on close grip bench presses and dips so that my elbows flare out a bit at the bottom of the movement as opposed to bending straight at the elbow. Like I said, I still get pain, but it's not to the point where I can't lift anymore. I can bench over 300 pounds with tendinitis in BOTH elbows, so I am sure you will be fine if you adjust and go from there

 

[BigDyl]

Pain?! What are you?!! A Wimp!? You must be a puny girly man who lifts puny weight or something. No Pain No Gain Mang! You gotta lift or die, or die trying. Or at least this is what I remeber the trainer at the YMCA sounding like...

 

[Phred]

I have a similar pain in my lower left tricep. However, if I take my time and do 2-3 warmup sets with reps in the 15-20 range, I have very little pain. So for me it is very important to warmup before any tricep isolation exercises. I also have some joint pain in my left shoulder that I minimize with a good warm up as well.

As it was mentioned above, if a certain exercise seems to make the pain worse, stop and evaluate the exercise. It may be your form or just an idividual physiological thing. You need to figure that out and adjust your routine accordinly. But definately get a good joint/muscle specific warmup before hitting your working sets.