Shoulder fatigue

[pumpingiron]

When I do my bench press workouts my shoulders seem to fatigue a lot more than any of my other muscles. Actually, the shoulders are really the only muscles that I can feel that are fatigued during my workout. Could this be because I have bad form, could my shoulders be my weak link, or is this just normal for everybody?

[3speed]

Give us some details on your bench. Raw/equipped. Regular bench or board work. What is your hand placement.....narrow, medium, or wide grip? Do you keep your elbows tucked in close to you sides or do you flare them out when you press?

There are a lot of very good benchers here who can help you out but they need info about your style and setup.

[pumpingiron]

Raw regular flat, incline, and decline bench. I measured from pinky to pinky and it was 30.5 inches, not sure what kind of grip that would be. And my elbows flare out.

[Deleted]

Although it is hard to diagnose a "problem", if there is one, without seeing you bench firsthand, the first thing that sticks out for me is the flared out elbows. That will lead to more stress on your shoulders as the rotation in the joint when benching with flared elbows is greater than if your elbows are tucked.

I'd recommend working on tucking them in to see if it helps. However, when I first started working on this I tucked them in too far and in fact created more stress on my shoulders. Make sure your shoulder blades are down and tight together, that you have a good arch, and then lower the bar such that your elbows are about 45 degrees from your sides...this should lower the bar right about where your sternum is.

Try that and see if it helps.

Also, though, benching is largely a shoulder movement unless you are focusing on just using your chest. When I do powerlifting style bench press workouts I find my lats and shoulders take a lot of the stress and end up sore the next day. My chest is usually also sore of course.

Hope this all helps.
Luke

[jp]

pumpingiron said:

When I do my bench press workouts my shoulders seem to fatigue a lot more than any of my other muscles. Actually, the shoulders are really the only muscles that I can feel that are fatigued during my workout. Could this be because I have bad form, could my shoulders be my weak link, or is this just normal for everybody?

Mine too. Its probably not anything you're doing wrong. Its probably more the way your body is built. I for one, do not feel bench pressing in my chest. I feel it most in my shoulders. When I train, I bench, then I do lockouts for triceps, then decline work and finally finish with suspended pushups going really deep. The declines and the suspended pushups are where I feel the chest muscles working. Just sounds like you need to search out the exercise that stimulates the muscle....could be anyone of a number of different types of bench presses. I found just changing my grip will affect the chest muscles differently.

In order to determine a correct grip - whatever that is since its so subjective - I simply place an empty barbell on my chest so that in the bottom position, the forearms are perpendicular to the floor....in other words straight up and down....if your grip is too wide at the the bottom it can really change the groove of the press.

I simply marked the area on my bar with duct tape so that each and every workout and set and rep is always the same.....

I agree with Luke's advice on the set up....try it...its sound advice.

Cheers,

JP