One of the great things about the company I work for is that it has a very strong safety culture. For example, whenever there is an accident or near miss they go to great lengths to conduct an extensive lessons learned to help prevent repeating any mistakes.
I decided to take this approach to my current personal injury and identify some of the potential causes so that others may learn from my mistake. Warning: I'm not even close to being an expert on sports medicine, so take my thoughts below with a grain of salt. They were formed from a combination of information I've read, talking with my doctor, and personal experience.
Weight Lifting Form
I started lifting weights 20 years ago and was taught about proper weight lifting form and technique primarily in high school. Since then, I've sought out very little additional information on the matter which I believe could have been problematic on two fronts. 1) The scientific body of knowledge most likely progressed and discovered new techniques or safety precautions that I wasn't aware of, and 2) I most likely forgot some of the proper techniques over the past 20 years.
In hindsight I believe one of the main causes for my injury was that my hands were too wide on the bar during the flat bench free weight exercise. As the hands move closer together on the bar, the shoulder and tricep muscle groups share more of the load with the pectoral muscle and the pectoral muscle range of motion isn't as dramatic.
In addition to having your hands closer together on the bar, I've read that not bringing the bar all the way down to your chest may also help prevent this injury.
Warm Up and Stretching
In my first post on this blog I described what I did to warm up before I was performing the bench press exercise. In hindsight, I realize I could have done more to further warm up my body and pectoral muscles.
First, I think that it is probably more appropriate to spend 10 minutes warming up the entire body instead of the 2-3 minutes doing jumping jacks as I did that day.
Secondly, I think I could have added a few more sets of warmup during the bench press exercise. For example: 135x12, 165x12, 185x12 and then move up to 205. This is an approach that I've read a lot of bodybuilders take in their workouts although it appears to be more common with lower rep routines.
Finally, when looking back, I don't recall doing any stretching specifically of my chest before benching that day. I regularly stretch my lower back due to a previous hip injury but it often ends there. I also have realized that stretching my chest was not something I regularly performed.
Frequency of Bench Press Exercise
As I also mentioned in my original post, I like to vary up my exercise routine in part to prevent boredom and in part for muscle confusion. Additionally, I have a chronic problem spanning the last decade of not being very consistent with regular exercise. The norm for me consists of 3 weeks of exercise, 2 weeks off, 2 weeks on, 1 week off, 3 weeks on.... ...you get the picture. Therefore, I probably end up flat bench pressing one or two times a month at most. Occassionally I'll go 6-8 weeks without bench pressing, although I do push-ups and dumbbell flys more frequently.
Supplemental Muscle Strength
As I mentioned earlier, the bench press exercise relies on the shoulder and tricep muscle groups in addition to the pectoral muscle. If these support muscles had been stronger, it may have helped share the load as the pectoral muscle became exhausted. I rarely performed exercises isolating the tricep or shoulders since my routine strategy usually focuses on exercises that utilize multiple muscle groups. Strengthening those muscles seperately on a regular basis might have added enough additional strength to prevent or reduce the severity of my injury.
General Health
Although prior to this injury I didn't have any major health issues but I would like to point out I was not in optimal health. I most likely was 40-50 lbs. overweight, had a moderately poor and inconsistent diet, and definitely could have been more consistent in overall exercise but especially cardiovascular exercise.
Age
I'm almost 36 years old and there is no doubt that over the past 4-5 years my body's ability to physically recover has slowed. Maybe it's time my exercise and activity intensity adjust to that reality.
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