Hey everybody, Chad Wesley Smith here for Juggernaut Training Systems and today I'm going to be talking to you about some injury workarounds for the bench press.

So if you're dealing with shoulder pain, pec issues, elbow pain, these are going to be some good options for you to still get positive progress going on your bench press training without, you know, further exacerbating the issues and having to take two steps back because now you got a more serious shoulder injury or worse elbow pain uh hindering your training.

So, if you're dealing with shoulder pain, pec issues, maybe bicep tendinitis, typically the the simplest way to mitigate that is going to be by changing your range of motion. And a great tool for that can be a bench block if you don't have boards. But really, anything to to reduce the range of motion and be be able to do it in a bit of a progressive way.

So, with the bench block, like this one has two different heights. So, Marissa shows her full range of motion in the bench press, but she seemed to have some sort of reduced range of motion already, but and we could further reduce that range of motion with the block press. And this is the one board variation. So, if that reduces your pain for the day, awesome. If that's not getting the job done, you can go to the two board variation. And then if you need more than that, three board, four board, you know, depending on what you have access to.

If you can use 2x4s, awesome. You could use rolled up towel. You could use a a half foam roller or a full foam roller, you know, ax pads, lots of different options. You just want to have some way that it's consistent and you're reducing the range of motion by that.

And if and if you're early stage of rehab and if you've used the rehab options in the app, you've seen this where we go like five board, four board, three board, two board, one board back down to the chest over a course of 6 weeks. Uh and that's just a great way to give you graded exposure back to the movement you're trying to do.

Uh if you need to press from pins, that can also be a good way to reduce range of motion cuz doing some kind of bench press variation is going to be better for your long-term progress than, you know, just taking the bench off completely.

Uh you can get into dumbbell pressing variations palms in a lot of times is going to be more beneficial for you.

So that's the next point of how you can manipulate these exercises is by changing your grip. So if your shoulders bothering you and you are typically a wide grip bench presser, maybe you just need to move your grip in for the day.

This is going to be a lot of just kind of trial and error, seeing how you feel in the warm-up that if normally your middle finger on the rings and that hurts, but pinkies on the rings feels a little bit better. Okay, maybe that's good enough. Maybe you need to move a little bit inside the rings as well.

Or if you have the option to change your grip position entirely into a palms in bench press with if you have like a a neutral grip bar, a Cadillac Swiss bar, you know, all the different brands out there, that can be a great option for you.

You can do dumbbell pressing variations with your palms in and be able to manipulate it that way. Or, and this is a lot of times more for elbow pain or wrist pain.

If you can have access to something like this, fat grips, which just clamp onto the bar, that's going to be something that I think we'll find will alleviate a lot of elbow stress. I find this with my jiu-jitsu guys and MMA guys because they're doing so much gripping that a lot of times they have kind of er nerve issues in here. But if they use the fat grips, that tends to alleviate that problem. I mean, more girth never hurts.

Other way that you can manipulate your bench press training is by changing the tempo. So, if bringing the bar down quickly is bothering whatever's whatever is causing you pain that day, see how it feels to bring it down slower. Uh maybe you need to press slower, maybe you need to have a little bit longer pause for the day.

This is also all going to tie into probably manipulating the load that you're using. Of course, if you're using a slow, eccentric, and long pause, you're not going to be able to go as heavy. That's probably likely to not be as painful for whatever injury you're dealing with.

But these are all just kind of different levers that you can pull to work around the injury for that day.

So, we can change the range of motion. We can change your grip width, hand position, the girth of the grip. We can change the tempo of the exercises. You know, if you're dealing with elbow or shoulder pain, throwing a slingshot on or doing reverse bands from the top of the rack can be an effective way for you to reduce the load in your most vulnerable position as you're most likely experiencing pain with the bar right on your chest.

So, those are all ways that we can work around injuries for the bench press and help you make progress towards your goals without having to take a step back because you're just so stubborn in sticking exactly to the plan.

So, be wise, be disciplined, make these small adjustments. If you enjoyed this video, like, subscribe to the channel, and don't forget to check out the twoeek free trial of the Juggernaut AI app with the link down in the description or by visiting juggernautai.app. Thanks for watching.