Bench Pressing with labral tear

[Jordan19]

Mark,

I underwent an MRI a year ago for shoulder pain, and was told that I have a small labral tear in my right shoulder supposedly due to many years of playing goaltender in hockey. I did the basic rehab exercises with a physiotherapist to no avail, and met with a surgeon who told me the surgery may not fix the actual pain due to the location of the tear (front of my shoulder rather than the back).

I decided to forgo the surgery, and recently came across your book and website. I began overhead pressing, which has helped my shoulder feel much better.

I overhead press a few days a week, switching up the reps but slowly increasing the weight. Ex. Some days I work up to 3 heavy sets of 5, and some days I just do lighter weight for 3 sets of 10.

Here are my current stats:

Squat: 3x5 215 lbs.
Bench Press: 145 lbs 3 x 5
Weighted Chins: 35 lbs 3 x 5
Press: 135lbs 3x 3


Height: 5’10
Weight: 180 lbs

My questions are: 1)Should I stop bench pressing due to my labral tear? I sometimes experience light pain in my shoulder when I bench press, however pressing does not cause any pain. I want to keep benching because I have lots of room to improve my upper body strength, but I do not want to cause any problems in the future. And 2) In your opinion should I elect for the surgery, or just keeping increasing my pressing strength and hope for the best. I am very active in a variety of sports including hockey and baseball.

I appreciate you taking the time to answer this question.

[Mark Rippetoe]

1. Get your squat up to a reasonable number immediately, because 215 at 180 indicates that you haven't actually been training.

2. Start deadlifting, because this also indicates that you haven't been training.

3. Gain the bodyweight necessary to accomplish 1 and 2, and see if your shoulder doesn't feel better with more muscle mass around it.

4. Let the additional mass help your press and bench. Worry about the surgery after you actually begin training.

[Walter48]

4 years ago I tore my labrum from a car accident.
I have a competition and plan to hit 340 bench, it hurts sometimes. Can't have surgery...not an option for me.
Rip is correct, as usual, get stronger in your other lifts. Pressing has me alot...just sayin

[Tiburon]

5. Consider doing DB bench

[lurkmore]

5. Consider doing DB bench

Wouldn't that just make things worse? Getting a dumbbell of any decent size into position by yourself is unpleasant at best, and that assumes your gym has any that aren't bent over from being dropped.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Yeah, you'd have to know how to get the dumbbells into position without hurting yourself. Maybe there's a video of this somewhere.

[Jordan19]

Thanks for the responses. I will start deadlifting regularly again. My squat is also progressing 10 lbs a workout, I started at 135 lbs for form purposes about 8 weeks ago.
Dumbbell bench used to hurt my shoulder when I tried it a few years ago. Pressing has been the best thing for me since I've had the shoulder problem, just wanted to make sure I wasn't causing more damage by increasing my bench. I'll keep working and increasing those lifts then.

[blowdpanis]

Floor pressing is also a reasonable option, I'd think, as you're cutting off the bottom end of the ROM where the shoulder is, in principle, in its most vulnerable position. Contrary to the usual logic that a floor press is a "half" bench press, I've actually done a lot of video analysis and it's probably something more like ~3/4 of a bench for many, depending on anthropometry. For some bigger, barrel-chested dudes with short arms it's surprisingly close to 100%. It has the fairly strong plus side of being considerably safer from a not accidentally getting stuck under the bar or killing yourself perspective. For people with pre-existing shoulder pathology it's a pretty good alternative to the bench press IMO.

[Tiburon]

Getting a dumbbell of any decent size into position by yourself is unpleasant at best

God forbid you do anything unpleasant in a strength-training program. You start with the 20s, and next week you use the 25s, and next week you use. . .. .oh shit, it would be so much less unpleasant if there were a name for this phenomenon.