Hey guys I tore my pec benching. I was doing 225 for 3 sets of 5 reps. I tore it on my third rep of my third set, I was easily lifting the weight and I didn't feel any pain besides a 1-2/10 on the side that tore before it happened. It was a partial tear of the muscle belly.
I didn't warm up before benching but the weight was going up easily and painlessly and I've never warmed up for bench before. I was doing linear progression and benching 3x a week. I had made a lot of gains on dumbbell bench going from 55lb dumbbells to 90lb dumbbells. I had just recently started barbell bench and it was my 4th session back benching. I went from 185 first session, and increased by 10lbs each session. I've never had chest problems before. I wasn't flaring my elbows hard. My grip is pointer finger on the outer rings of the bar.
I'm currently following the starr rehab protocol. I waited about 10 days where I just did arm circles and ghost benching. Then I started the starr protocol which is starting with the bar for 3 set of 25 reps and adding 10lbs every workout. You are supposed to bench every day to draw blood into the muscles. Once it gets too heavy you drop to 20 reps, 15 reps, 10, and then 5. I finish the session with a few sets of passive hanging from a pull up bar. I'm still doing 30 minutes of jogging once a week and 10 sets of 60 seconds on/60 seconds off of HIIT kickboxing on the heavy bag twice a week. I feel no pain when hitting the bag.
I'm going to work on cuban press to train my external rotators because that seems like it might be a possible avenue to reduce my chance of tearing my pec. In the future I'm also going to do myofascial release of the pecs and warm up with lighter benching weight before going into my work sets. It doesn't make sense for it to tear though because I've exerted myself harder on bench before and the weight was going up easily/relatively painlessly(1-2/10 on the pain scale). Bench press was my first exercise of the day as well.
Any insight of why my pec tore? What can I do to prevent tears in the future? Are there exercises I should do as prehab? Should I continue benching when my pec is better, should I go to dumbbell bench, or what else should I do to train horizontal pressing instead? I do strength training as accessory work for MMA.
I didn't warm up before benching but the weight was going up easily and painlessly and I've never warmed up for bench before. I was doing linear progression and benching 3x a week. I had made a lot of gains on dumbbell bench going from 55lb dumbbells to 90lb dumbbells. I had just recently started barbell bench and it was my 4th session back benching. I went from 185 first session, and increased by 10lbs each session. I've never had chest problems before. I wasn't flaring my elbows hard. My grip is pointer finger on the outer rings of the bar.
I'm currently following the starr rehab protocol. I waited about 10 days where I just did arm circles and ghost benching. Then I started the starr protocol which is starting with the bar for 3 set of 25 reps and adding 10lbs every workout. You are supposed to bench every day to draw blood into the muscles. Once it gets too heavy you drop to 20 reps, 15 reps, 10, and then 5. I finish the session with a few sets of passive hanging from a pull up bar. I'm still doing 30 minutes of jogging once a week and 10 sets of 60 seconds on/60 seconds off of HIIT kickboxing on the heavy bag twice a week. I feel no pain when hitting the bag.
I'm going to work on cuban press to train my external rotators because that seems like it might be a possible avenue to reduce my chance of tearing my pec. In the future I'm also going to do myofascial release of the pecs and warm up with lighter benching weight before going into my work sets. It doesn't make sense for it to tear though because I've exerted myself harder on bench before and the weight was going up easily/relatively painlessly(1-2/10 on the pain scale). Bench press was my first exercise of the day as well.
Any insight of why my pec tore? What can I do to prevent tears in the future? Are there exercises I should do as prehab? Should I continue benching when my pec is better, should I go to dumbbell bench, or what else should I do to train horizontal pressing instead? I do strength training as accessory work for MMA.
