How to avoid torn tendons benching (or during other exercises) at low weights?

[quagmire]

I always thought that torn pec tendons were the domain of heavy lifting (400+lbs).
But there are two guys in the recovery section who have had torn pec tendons benching at
200-ish pounds (one around 150 lbs). With no glaring warning signs.

So, how to avoid torn tendons for us low-weight lifters?

[Mark Rippetoe]

Avoid doing high-rep burpees/ring dips/muscle-ups/pushups/other CrossFit shit that inflames the anterior shoulder. Tears of this nature are NOT a normal consequence of intelligent strength training, and I had never seen them before CrossFit "metcons" involving these heavily eccentric/dynamic movements at high reps..

[GOMAD]

Is the main danger the high reps or just that the exercises themselves are dumb anyway and the addition of high reps amplifies the dumb?

I'm not including the ring dips & push-ups, mainly the muscle up and burpees.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Thousands of reps in sets of 50+ cause inflammation, systemic and local, no matter what the exercise. And the fact that this stuff is done for time means that it's done badly, with a sharply plyometric deceleration. This kind of eccentric shit tears things up. Add to this the fact that their people are running around telling everybody that inflammation is actually good, and you have a recipe for weird new injuries.

[Will Morris]

The fact that the rupture is in the tendon rather than the muscle belly tends to suggest long standing inflammation of the tendon (tendinosis). If you couple that with the fact that pec ruptures are extremely rare compared to other muscles, and the fact that these pec tendon ruptures are (anectdotally) much more common in Cross-Fitters, then the logical conclusion is Cross-Fit increases the likelihood of tendinosis of the pectoralis major tendon. CLinically, we induce inflammation in the tendon through eccentric exercise, so non-therapeutic inflammation is probably caused by eccentric action (primarily).