Pec Tears and Bench Press (WARNING!)

If you are worried about suffering pec tears when doing the bench press then you are definitely going to want to watch this video. Recently, there have been graphic videos going around showing a bad pec tear suffered by bodybuilder Ryan Crowley. In this particular case, the tendon avulsed from the h

What’s up guys, Jeff Cavaliere, Athleanx. com. Should you fear the bench press? Are you in danger of being the next one to suffer a pec  tear? Look, I get it, with the videos that have been going around lately, you have probably  a good reason to be fearful.

As a matter of fact, if you haven’t seen this one, this one’s  going to strike fear in pretty much anybody. Look, there there’s no doubt that is one of  the most gruesome pec injuries I’ve ever seen. But are you next in line to suffer the same fate? Now, what people have done sort of ad nauseum at the moment is break that video down and try to  reverse engineer what happened there as reason for what you could do to correct or prevent that  from happening to you. That’s not the way you look at this, guys.

As a PT, I can tell you, you need  to sort of look a little bit more globally at the biomechanics of the exercise and see where  you might have some shortcomings that could potentially increase your risks a bit in terms  of your performance of the exercise. So, I want to make sure that I do this the right way, guys. I’m going to put the science back in strength and break the exercise down for you segment by segment  and see where you might be at risk and maybe where you don’t have to be concerned at all. All right, so the thing we should do is make sure that we’re all talking about the same muscle,  because when we talk about the pecs, there’s a differentiation between the pec major and the pec  minor. And you can see here the pec minor has a different attachment point than the pec major does  and is the big difference of why we almost never see pec minor tears on the bench press and why we  almost exclusively see pec major tears.

Because the major attaches to the arm, which is going  to be able to move in space to create a greater stretch that can reach his breaking point. So, speaking of that breaking point, the pec can tear in one of four different places,  either in the muscle belly itself or at something called the musculotendinous junction, where the  belly feeds into the tendon that then goes on to attach it to the arm. Or it could be a little  bit more ugly where it’s going to detach itself or avulse from the bone. And that can be either at  the proximal attachment on the sternum or out here in the humerus. It’s actually the humoral avulsion  that we saw in that video that I showed you.

Okay, so now who’s most susceptible to this  injury, because that’s probably what you’re most concerned about, are you next? Well, there’s  two major categories of people that have to worry even a little bit here. And that is, number  one, you’re an athlete. Particularly a rugby or football player, a boxer or maybe a professional  wrestler. Because there are stresses that can happen spontaneously in those sports that place  a great eccentric overload on your pecs that can result in a tear.

Ironically, almost all the tears  that occur in these athletes happened in that mid belly form. The other population of people that  oftentimes will experience those tendon pec tears or those avulsion type tears is a weightlifter. And if you’re watching this channel, you’re likely lift in some ways. However, within that  category, there’s one exercise that stands above all the others when it comes to creating that pec  tear and that’s the bench press. And we’re talking specifically about the barbell bench press.

And  when we look at it in relation to the dumbbell bench press, there’s almost a non-existent risk  in the dumbbell bench press versus the barbell bench press. The disproportionate number of pec  tears that come from a barbell versus a dumbbell actually for me holds the key difference as to  why we were at increased risk from the exercise. And that gives you the opportunity to  make some adjustments accordingly. To understand the key differences between  the variations of that same exercise, you want to understand what the pec does  in the first place and more importantly, how we can place it on stretch by going in  opposite of those actions. And the first thing I want you to do is take your arm out to the  side and place the other hand here on your pec.

Now, I want you to pull your arm down to your  side. That’s called adduction, right? And when we do that, we can feel the pec engage and contract. We can intensify that even more by not stopping at our side but allowing it to actually cross  midline. That’s called horizontal adduction, but it’s still a form of adduction.

The second  main function of the pec is to actually internally rotate the shoulder. So, if I take my arm and  I dive it down and then take the thumb and try to point it down towards the ground, you’re going  to feel the fibers of the chest engage even more. The third function is to actually flex the  shoulder more of a job of the upper pecs, but still the pec major we’re talking about  bringing the shoulder up into this direction. So, if we wanted to see where the chest becomes most  at risk, then we want to see how we place it on the greatest amount of stretch, and that is  reversing those directions. So instead of going to adduction, you want to go into abduction, getting  the arm out away from our body instead of internal rotation, we go external rotation.

You can see  that when we get into external rotation here, you can feel an even greater stretch on the  pecs. The last thing is not shoulder flexion, but the opposite of that, which is shoulder  extension, bringing the arm back behind the body. You can see what I get to the bottom of the bench  press, I’m putting myself in that maximum stress position. Place a high load there, you’re  asking potentially for some trouble. Well, not so fast.

You see, because of  the three motions I just talked about, there’s only one that actually can be  altered and is altered between the two different positions of the bench press, whether  done with the barbell or dumbbell, and therefore potentially subjecting you to a pec tear. It’s not rotation. Because rotation and altering rotation on the bench press, no matter  what form you’re doing, is non-negotiable. You can’t change the rotation of the shoulder and  still do the same effective exercise. If I do the bench press and you look at it from the side  in order to be done right, the bar has to ride over the forearm directly in line with the elbow,  that is where your pressing power comes from.

It’s also where your safe shoulder mechanics come from. Because if I allow the bar to drift backwards into more external rotation, not only have I taken  the bar away from the desired alignment over the elbow, but I’ve placed additional stress on the  front caps on the shoulder. We don’t want that. Equally as bad, we would allow the bar to drift  forward, taking us into more internal rotation. This is going to lead to a far greater  likelihood that you’re going to see an AC joint injury than ever having to worry about a  pec tear alone, because these biomechanics are horrible for the shoulder.

And again, nothing  you would even consider, so it’s a nonfactor between the difference of the two versus the bench  press. Which leads us to the extension component, once again, not something we even consider here. As a matter of fact, on the dumbbell bench press, you get more extension of the arm  behind the body because you’re not being stopped by the bar on your chest. Add to that fact that most pec tears occur in this zone right here. And that is the  zone just a couple inches off of the chest where you were nowhere near full extension  at the shoulder.

Again, fewer injuries on the dumbbell bench press versus the barbell be