Pain after chest workout

[BBAddict]

Almost every week after my chest workout, I have significant pain directly to both sides of my sternum (on the border of the bone and muscle). I makes it really painful to breath extremely deeply, cough, sneeze, etc. Anybody ever experience this or have any idea what this could be due to?

[Jordan]

ouch. make sure youre not bouncing the bar of your sternum when you bench. Alot of people do this and you can really injure yourself that way

[BBAddict]

I have bad rotator cuffs, so I really don't let the bar down that far. I only let it down to about 1-1.5inches from my chest.

[bighitz]

what kind of exercises are you doing on chest day?

[BBAddict]

Yesterday I did flat barbell bench press, incline barbell press, decline dumbell press and flat dumbell flys. But it happens every time. I used to think it might have been dips, so I didn't do them a few times but it didn't change anything. I really don't know what it is or what to do. :(

[Stonecold54]

do you have pain during your workouts?

[BBAddict]

no pain during the workout just the expected pain from lactic acid/burning in the muscle. Definitely no pain in the sternum area that is causing the problem the following couple days.

[Stonecold54]

You can try to just do one exercise per workout and see if it still hurts. that is what I would do to find the culprit.

[BBAddict]

Good idea!
Thanks, I'll have to do something like you do though to make sure I still get a decent workout. You and I are similar in terms of the lack of development of a chest, so I hate to cheat my chest training.

[Stonecold54]

how long have you been stopping short on your bench movements because of your rotator problems? this could be the problem that they don't get a full stretch every workout then maybe once in awhile they got get over stretched causing microtears on the sternum.

[BBAddict]

Well, well, I think you may be onto something there. I have been trying to go deeper lately to get more of a stretch-you know, just trying to find something to jumpstart more chest growth. I think next time I will go back to my old ROM and see if I still have sternum pain after that. Would you agree that if it is from just going deeper it is probably good to tear down that muscle more so that it eventually catches up with the rest of my pec development?

[Stonecold54]

Originally posted by BBAddict
Well, well, I think you may be onto something there. I have been trying to go deeper lately to get more of a stretch-you know, just trying to find something to jumpstart more chest growth. I think next time I will go back to my old ROM and see if I still have sternum pain after that. Would you agree that if it is from just going deeper it is probably good to tear down that muscle more so that it eventually catches up with the rest of my pec development?

well you shouldn't get real "pain" from a workout. yours sounds more serious than just workout soreness. I would do some light deep stretch flyes and maybe the same with a bench movement to. but don't go heavy. work them in gradually.