Shoulder pain during wide-grip eccentric descent of overhead weight

[aweight]

My right shoulder joint hurts while bringing down overhead weight in a controlled manner with a wide grip like while doing reps of muscle snatches. It only triggers with the wide snatch grip, not with the narrower overhead press grip or even a jerk grip, and only during descent, especially when the bar passes the chest and the elbow starts re-extending. The pain is hard to pinpoint but feels more towards the front and top of the shoulder joint.

Any tips on potential causes and fixes? Thanks.

[Mark Rippetoe]

No idea. An MRI may be advisable, since it would be good to know what to avoid doing to prevent an actual surgical injury from occurring. How long has it been doing this?

[aweight]

I started noticing it a couple weeks back since I started doing low weight or barbell-only snatch exercises but I’ve had this eccentric descent pain trigger for many months now (with no memory of an acute injury), and last summer or so, I could trigger it simply by bringing down a sideways extended empty arm slowly, but now it takes some weight to trigger it.

The pain is lessened if I descend weight with my elbows inward as opposed to keeping them flared out, which makes me think I likely injured it while benching with elbow flare in the past.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Give some thought to doing your presses correctly, with a narrow grip. There is a reason we coach it that way.