Bicep tendon/humerus pain while benching.

[fixxer]

Sad- DU had the platelet injection done on his knee. I'm sure he could give you some great insight. He's a very smart guy and you can be sure he did his homework before undergoing such a thing.

If I were you, I'd want to stop the speculating and go get an MRI. I had a bicep tendon problem that felt like a chest problem. With everything that attaches in the area it's hard to know 100% what it is. The MRI will tell the tale. If you don't like your orthopedic surgeon's assessment, take your MRI to another doc. Don't let him confiscate your CD with the images on it, that's your property.

 

[ajdos]

Well this thread has been real enlightening and all but take it from me SAD I suffer from the same malady.

Your pec has a bit to do with it (mostly needs to be stretched out) the big player here is your tricep.

See your bicep and tricep have this lovely little symbiotic relationship, and anytime you want to test this theory do a bicep workout and see how much more difficult it is to press.
VERY MUCH MORE.
For me its my left arm, natuarally Im right handed, so my left arms tricep is not as strong.
What happens (especially when going heavy) is as the tricep becomes overwhelmed the biceps antagonistic contraction will actually compensate and try to lend a helping hand, this is not a normal thing for your bicep to do, you get a dull ache, and curling and backwork you will feel no pain at all.
To me it feels like the brachioradialis is getting the brunt of it, but honestly it comes from a tricep thats just a bit weeker on one side.
Try to do more dumbell work, and do more one armed tricep work to try to isolate the weaker side, it does take a bit of time to get it resolved but no longer than 1-3 months for me and I just got over the third one in a months time, it really comes down to learning the exercises that aggravate the area and not doing them every single workout, for me its incline barbell.

 

[SAD]

Well this thread has been real enlightening and all but take it from me SAD I suffer from the same malady.

Your pec has a bit to do with it (mostly needs to be stretched out) the big player here is your tricep.

See your bicep and tricep have this lovely little symbiotic relationship, and anytime you want to test this theory do a bicep workout and see how much more difficult it is to press.
VERY MUCH MORE.
For me its my left arm, natuarally Im right handed, so my left arms tricep is not as strong.
What happens (especially when going heavy) is as the tricep becomes overwhelmed the biceps antagonistic contraction will actually compensate and try to lend a helping hand, this is not a normal thing for your bicep to do, you get a dull ache, and curling and backwork you will feel no pain at all.
To me it feels like the brachioradialis is getting the brunt of it, but honestly it comes from a tricep thats just a bit weeker on one side.
Try to do more dumbell work, and do more one armed tricep work to try to isolate the weaker side, it does take a bit of time to get it resolved but no longer than 1-3 months for me and I just got over the third one in a months time, it really comes down to learning the exercises that aggravate the area and not doing them every single workout, for me its incline barbell.

What's really interesting is that I completely abandoned barbell work for chest and shoulders about 5 months ago due to some nagging shoulder issues, so I've been doing dumbbell work for shoulders and chest up until the pain started about a month ago. I had my own theory that the injury was do to recruiting so many little muscles to balance the heavier dumbbells (140s and 150s for incline press, 100s and 110s for OH press) so I decided to go back to using barbells for my heavy working sets. I guess what I'm saying is that the pain started with dumbbells without any barbell work, so I'm not sure that using dumbbells exclusively will alleviate the problem much. I do like the idea of doing individual tricep work and that makes a lot of sense. I am a firm believer in balancing strength on opposing muscle groups and it has helped me with my knee recovery greatly.

As GetSome and anyone else who did a lot of pitching in their life can tell you, the pitching shoulder will naturally hang a little lower that the non-pitching shoulder and will be much more flexible and loose in the shoulder socket. Because of this, the pitching shoulder tends to do more work when pressing and it is another reason why I think my left arm is injured. It is easy to take my left shoulder out of pressing movements, but because my right shoulder(pitching arm) is not as "locked in" to the socket, it is harder to take it out of the lift. That coincides pretty well with your theory that my tricep is outworking/overworking on one side (left side). Am I making any sense?

I am going to take a little of this and a little of that from everyone's advice, and I will absolutely get my ortho to do an MRI before deciding anything. Thanks to all of you guys/gals.

 

[Halo]

I hear you on the pitching SAD, I would bet allot of people aren't going to type what I'm about to. In 2004 I was pithing in a game, it was going pretty well for me 7 strike outs in three and a third and then it happened throwing an 80'ish mph slider and my R Humerus exploded, Dave Dravecky style. I fell in a pile screaming in pain, it was a really crazy spiral fx, luckily the bone didn't pierce the skin but it almost did. They waited six months to do my surgery but now I have a 10" titanium plate and 10 screws holding that shit together. I've shared the pics with a couple of folks on here, it was one of the most horrific things I've ever been through. My bone density turned out to be find, my calcium levels were good they think it was muscular that led to he increased pressure on the bone and then it happened. If you have any questions about it, I'll share what I know. The biggest thing I can say is that humerus is not some shit you want to break.

 

[AllTheWay]

I hear you on the pitching SAD, I would bet allot of people aren't going to type what I'm about to. In 2004 I was pithing in a game, it was going pretty well for me 7 strike outs in three and a third and then it happened throwing an 80'ish mph slider and my R Humerus exploded, Dave Dravecky style. I fell in a pile screaming in pain, it was a really crazy spiral fx, luckily the bone didn't pierce the skin but it almost did. They waited six months to do my surgery but now I have a 10" titanium plate and 10 screws holding that shit together. I've shared the pics with a couple of folks on here, it was one of the most horrific things I've ever been through. My bone density turned out to be find, my calcium levels were good they think it was muscular that led to he increased pressure on the bone and then it happened. If you have any questions about it, I'll share what I know. The biggest thing I can say is that humerus is not some shit you want to break.

that is some great information halo! definitely something to consider where it is humeral pain and not just muscle pain.

 

[ajdos]

What's really interesting is that I completely abandoned barbell work for chest and shoulders about 5 months ago due to some nagging shoulder issues, so I've been doing dumbbell work for shoulders and chest up until the pain started about a month ago. I had my own theory that the injury was do to recruiting so many little muscles to balance the heavier dumbbells (140s and 150s for incline press, 100s and 110s for OH press) so I decided to go back to using barbells for my heavy working sets. I guess what I'm saying is that the pain started with dumbbells without any barbell work, so I'm not sure that using dumbbells exclusively will alleviate the problem much. I do like the idea of doing individual tricep work and that makes a lot of sense. I am a firm believer in balancing strength on opposing muscle groups and it has helped me with my knee recovery greatly.

As GetSome and anyone else who did a lot of pitching in their life can tell you, the pitching shoulder will naturally hang a little lower that the non-pitching shoulder and will be much more flexible and loose in the shoulder socket. Because of this, the pitching shoulder tends to do more work when pressing and it is another reason why I think my left arm is injured. It is easy to take my left shoulder out of pressing movements, but because my right shoulder(pitching arm) is not as "locked in" to the socket, it is harder to take it out of the lift. That coincides pretty well with your theory that my tricep is outworking/overworking on one side (left side). Am I making any sense?

I am going to take a little of this and a little of that from everyone's advice, and I will absolutely get my ortho to do an MRI before deciding anything. Thanks to all of you guys/gals.

Just another .02 had the same pain originally with dumbell overhead and inclines, I switched to barbell because of it, now I have had it 2 more times with barbell.
so its not exclusive, its just imbalance and overcompensation.

 

[SHINE]

I hear you on the pitching SAD, I would bet allot of people aren't going to type what I'm about to. In 2004 I was pithing in a game, it was going pretty well for me 7 strike outs in three and a third and then it happened throwing an 80'ish mph slider and my R Humerus exploded, Dave Dravecky style. I fell in a pile screaming in pain, it was a really crazy spiral fx, luckily the bone didn't pierce the skin but it almost did. They waited six months to do my surgery but now I have a 10" titanium plate and 10 screws holding that shit together. I've shared the pics with a couple of folks on here, it was one of the most horrific things I've ever been through. My bone density turned out to be find, my calcium levels were good they think it was muscular that led to he increased pressure on the bone and then it happened. If you have any questions about it, I'll share what I know. The biggest thing I can say is that humerus is not some shit you want to break.

OUCH! is all I gota say about that!!!