I once bench pressed a bench pressed bench, which was pressing a bench pressing a bench pressed bench. You can see where this is going....
I fell back from benching because a professional trainer told me eventually it wears down your rotator cuffs. Did I mention this dude was "shredded"? I'm thinking about dumbbell pressing like wethebest.
Or just go for a jog outside then do some curls and presses from a fallen log and save on gym memebership. Basically train like Rocky in rocky 4. I'm serious. I never see the point in paying for gym equipment or membership when the outdoors has it all. It's all about the outdoors.
I have all my equipment at the house. I wouldn't mind a workout partner though. I love curling too. I love to wake up in the mourning feeling sore. Ooouuuu.
I can't like your reply because I've reached my 25 like limit within a 12 hour period. *sigh* how lame is this new limit yo.
lol star thats a huge ass photo. i believe u. anyways u wish u could like this post to end the convo. i dont wanna spam peoples threadss
Why do you think dumbell presses {I assume on a flat bench} would be better for your shoulders [ rotator cuffs}?
Making a universal statement like that for all people, disregarding everyone's widely varying biomechanics, is what makes trainers look bad. What makes it worse is when people are "shredded" and make blanket statements like that, which only serves to confuse people seeking helpful advice. Just because someone is big, doesn't mean they have any idea what they're talking about, but people are more likely to eat up what they're saying simply based on appearances. What he told you is not helpful advice. Only you can know if it's bad for your shoulders or not based on your on personal physiology. Just always remember that every exercise you do must be done with proper form. If you're losing form to push more weight, you will eventually destroy your joints. Not that it matters, but I am a trainer as well. And I try my best not to feed people horse crap based on personal biases. It's best to experiment and do what works best for you. Dumbbells are usually better for your rotator cuffs as you are able to more freely control the weight using your stabilizer muscles. Flat bench has you holding onto the bar in a fixed position with both hands, and although the flat bench press does allow some freedom of movement, you are excluding smaller stabilizer muscles that are responsible for holding your rotator cuff in place. The rotator cuff is made up of 4 different muscles (the supraspinatus, infraspinatus, teres minor, and subscapularis) and the sole purpose of these muscles are to hold your shoulder joint in the proper place and allow proper movement. When we neglect the rotator cuff muscles by only focusing on exercises that neglect the stabilizers, it's a recipe for shoulders injuries. As long as you are focusing on proper form and also incorporating movements for shoulder health, you are much less likely to damage your shoulder joints. Shoulder injuries are one of the top injuries people incur in the gym because they forget to, or just don't care to, train the shoulders the way they're supposed to. Also, for some people, they build more muscle in the chest with dumbbells than they do with bench press due to more muscle fiber recruitment. But, everyone is different. Bench press is most definitely not a requirement for pec development. It has evolved into more of a bragging exercise than anything. What you bench is irrelevant to someone else as we all have our own personal biomechanics and issues we deal with.
Interesting about the stabilizers I don't know much about them but I imagine with people working out on machines they don't develop their stabilizer muscles. However, a barbell still works stabilizer muscles it's not a machine. Stabilizers are not the primary reason for shoulder damage from bench press. What's bad about bench press is that you have a big weight pressing down on your unsupported shoulders while lying flat on a bench. You're lying on a skinny bench that doesn't support your shoulders and you have a big weight pressing down on them pushing the shoulder off your body[ not literally but that is the direction of the force]. Ways to improve this are to use a wider bench with more support, and of course, you should always bench with an arch and pull your shoulder blades in [ kind of hard to explain] this helps to protect your shoulders. Floor press is of course much safer as you're "benching" off the floor and the floor supports your shoulders. Pushups are safe as well.
You don't know much about them, yet you continue on to explain about them. So, which is it? I don't know of any benches that are too "skinny" for bench, unless it's some piece of crap from Wal-mart. I don't know of any gym benches that are too skinny for support, especially not any of the ones specifically made for bench press. One thing that helps protect shoulders is a wider back for support. Proper form based on your individual biomechanics is super important. Bench itself is not an inherently bad exercise for your shoulders unless it's done improperly, but many people don't know how to execute them like they should. I would highly recommend the book Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe if you're curious about proper form for the bigger lifts. He goes into exhaustive detail about proper form and how to correct bad form. I wouldn't recommend doing barbell press off the floor for obvious reasons. But, floor variations using dumbbells are definitely a safer alternative if you have shoulder issues. But decreasing the range of motion is something else you can do as well if going back too far puts your rotator cuffs at risk.
