Rotator cuff on press

[Focussed]

Good morning

A couple of weeks ago I hurt the area between my shoulder blade and spine on the press descent. I have carefully followed all the form guide in the books as well as online videos etc but can’t diagnose my error.

After the injury I had a few days off and then reduced the weight on the press exercise and continued LP with slightly bigger jumps. Anyway, today on the press descent I felt a slight twinge and now I can definitely feel slight soreness in that same area.

My shoulders are weak as hell, I know I need to improve them! Historically this particular shoulder has always been weak since a ball throwing injury during cricket (boring sport that us brits play).

Can anyone advise on my probable mistake?

Thank you

[Mark Rippetoe]

Your rotator cuff does not lie between your shoulder blade and your spine. But more importantly, what do you want out of your training? Is slight soreness simply unacceptable? Are you unwilling to experience any pain whatsoever?

[Focussed]

Hi Mark

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

Apologies for my anataomy ignorance, I have done some more research and believe that the pain is my trapezius muscle.

Out of my training I want to increase my strength as I am weak. (To put it bluntly). I put a bit more detail into a previous post about programming if you want to re-read it (you pointed me towards your PPST book which I purchased).

With regard to pain when I felt it “go” the pain was very sharp and it would not have been possible to carry on pressing. It is wanting to avoid a repeat of this injury why I am asking you about it. I couldn’t turn my head to the right for a few days and required ibuprofen and paracetamol to sleep.

Today when pressing (still working back up to the weight I was at when the injury occurred) I finished my warm ups and working sets and could just feel slight soreness in the same area. This slight soreness I can handle.

So perhaps my questions are:

1: is there some sort of obvious form error that could cause a pinch or problem in that specific area?

2: is there some additional exercises I could do to work and strengthen the area?

Happy Easter.

[Mark Rippetoe]

These symptoms indicate a problem in your cervical/thoracic spine, probably at C6-7. A chiropractor might be able to help with this.

[Focussed]

I do have a slight curvature/bend of the spine in that area, it is a disappointment that that is the cause of this issue as it cannot be fixed! Where should I go from here? Would a different sort of press exercise work?

PS: the curve is less than 20 degrees so considered minor, I have never had any issues from it before.

[Focussed]

Today was my first day pressing since believing that the trap pain is linked to my scoliosis. I tried a wider grip than SS advises and felt less pressure, and no pain. Could it be that the wider grip eases the pressure in the problem area?

In other news my squat is +50% heavier than when I started LP (which was after 12 months “exercising”) and I still feel like I have a fair bit to give. 👍👍