Will a Bench Shirt Help Shoulder Pain?

[Good Earth]

I used to have shoulder pain when a benched. Due to therapy and stretching the pain has gone away, but I was just wondering if a Bench Shirt would help keep me from re-injuring the AC joint by giving me some compression and support when I bench. I realize that bench shirts are usually used for competition purposes, but my interest is purely safety/injury prevention. Any input would be much appreciated.

 

[somewhatgifted]

Well it depends on the type of injury you speak of. Shoulder pain by the sounds of in could be from pronation (forward rotation of your shoulders) caused by muscle imbalances between the pectoral, anterior delt and back muscles. I can assume this becasue of the way it was aleviated, probably by pulling the shoulder back through shoulder chest stretches.

Now prioritising a chest workout or using a benching shirt in my mind would fascilitate re-injury.
I would first do a series of low weight pressing chest workouts with limited shoulder movement and focus on upper back lat flexion to create a solid platform and develop a habit of not allowing your shoulders to move forward.

Another aspect of this injury is the fact that you may be very good at training chest and its effective steady development cause this pronated impingement type pain.

In summary i believe it may in fact help in the short term but i dont think this is an ideal solution, the solution is bac prioritisation in the short term, low weight strict chest workouts with shoulder isolation and lots of the stretches you learned from physio.

 

[Variocam]

Bench shirts are a pain in the ass to put on and they don't train chest and triceps the same as benching without. If you are training for a powerlifting meet in a fed that uses gear you might as well train all the time in the shirt and use multiple shirts. But you won't be getting any real bodybuilding benefit. It might hurt your shoulder more. You also have to learn how to use the shirt, so you bring your elbows in tight like you were close grip benching and make it a simple pump motion. This is totally unlike how most people bench raw and doesn't necessary carry over to unequipped.

 

[pmiller383]

If you are going to get anything, get an inzer blast shirt. That will not give you carry over but will give your support. What I would recommend though is either doing a 1 or 2 board press, or even better yet using a foam roller or rolled up piece of carpet to bench to. That will take a lot of stress off of your shoulder ( as long as you are using proper bench form ) also make sure to strengthen your lats and scapula to support you and balance everything out.
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