Supraspinatus Tendon and bench

[Soule]

Hey Coach,

I recently spoke to a DPT who loves your shit. He did the NLP back when only the first edition was out and the guy remind me a lot of Doc Morris here.

He mentioned that he has his patients with shoulder impingement contract their traps and shrug a tiny bit on bench press to clear the acromiom process away and allow some room the supraspinatus tendon.

Do you see any risks of injury or performance issues here, or is this a relatively safe way to bench for trainees with shoulder impingement issues?

I was wondering how this change of technique would scale with heavier weights since it doesn’t feel like I can get as tight with the shoulders slightly shrugged.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Doesn't seem like a good idea to me, since the impingement occurs between inferior AC surface and Superior surgical neck of the humerus. I can't picture a shrug in any direction that would unimpinge the joint with the humerus in anterior adduction. We use the humerus at 70 degrees to unimpinge, and we've never had any problems. This is brilliantly illustrated and explained on pp 157-59 of the blue book.

[Soule]

Roger that. I’m slowly re-reading the blue book and taking notes so I’ll be sure to pay close attention there.

Interestingly enough this technique seems to have worked for one of my clients with shoulder impingement, but it may have been caused by the elbow angle to which you are referring, occurring when he contracted his traps.