how to keep the chest tendon injury free while training heavy bench press?

Question

Here and here you can see me bench press 200 Kg.

I don't bench 200Kg 440 Lbs all year long. After reaching the 200, it goes down gradually back to 160 and then 160 for 2 reps and slowly up.

I use several paths in achieving that but the most common is 10 sets of 1-2 reps.

My question here today is related to an injure that happens sometimes. I am currently doing 2 reps on 180 Kg. I did this on sunday, but after benching I went doing some chest flies which I normally do.

I hurt my chest tendon, so today wednesday I am still feeling it.

this picture came from this website below:

Rupture Of The Pectoralis Major

Im have been putting ice in the morning over it, and I have not trained since sunday but today is wednesday and I want to go again.

I will do it light with extra amount of warming up and stretching, and keep monitoring it.

This question is not so straight forward but what I would like to know is:

I know that this was caused by the 180Kg x 2 plus the flies how can I progress and what is there that I should do and\or take to keep my chest tendons healthy and carry on progressing towards the 200Kg?

I am natural but would consider any supplement for a cycle if that is what it would take.

I prefer remaining natural though, so that is my first choice.

Answer 1

One suggestion I would make is dropping the chest flies completely. Several fitness trainers (Jeff Cavaliere of Athlene-X on Youtube for one), claim that doing flies has a very minimal effect on chest growth, while placing considerable stress on connective tissue due to the extreme stretch on chest tendons.

I don't lift anywhere near your weight (PB 140kgs @85kg bodyweight) but I've had similar injuries in the past, and since dropping flies the issue seems much less frequent.

Answer 2

The amount of weight that you are lifting puts you in the elite category and is demonstrative of the hard work you've done to achieve that, well done. A lesser-known fact is that the standard bench press puts tremendous strain on the connective tendons below the shoulder joint since the upper arm remains in a wide position with respect to your pecs. An alternative exercise to include in your routine is dumbbell bench presses. These allow you to finish the exercise in the more natural position with the arms much closer together, alleviating a lot of the pressure on that tendon, and allowing you to make the movement more productive from the middle to final position. The goal here is to allow maximum development of the pecs and avoid injury at the same time.

Answer 3

I have dropped the chest flies as Will Appleby suggested.

I have added dumbbell exercises as LLoyed Moore described.

I have also added on a separated day (generally the day after bench - not good I know) triceps exercises - mainly closed grip bench press (10 sets of 10 reps of 100kg) and dips (body weight - at the moment 110 kg).

this is the closed grip bench press:

this is the triceps dips:

But what I believe it really has made the difference and I have never had problems with my shoulders again, is adding this exercise to before and in-between bench press sets:

I do it exactly as it is shown on the picture below

1 - complete stretch laterally - in front - as shown on the fist pic below

2 - keeping laterally fully stretched go all the way to the back (or wherever is your own limit, start small and slow and progress accordingly)

3 - the goal is to have the resistance band fully stretched all the way to the back

I do this 10 times before each bench press set, and it is working very well to my present condition.