As I've gone heavier and heavier on the bench I've noticed a pain in my right shoulder under load when benching. I've just done some Youtubing and Googling and have since learnt that ectomorphs (which I am) should not let the bar touch their chest when they bench. Reason being; they have longer arms and when the bar touches their chests their elbows are beyond 90 degrees and this adds increased pressure on the elbow & shoulder and low and behold, can result in frequent injuries to the rotator cuff. If this is indeed correct - ectos should stay away from touching the chest to take pressure off of the shoulder - it could explain the pain I am experiencing.
Any of you familiar with this? Even when I started training in a commercial gym a few years ago they told me always go down to the chest.
I am an ectomorph, and I believe you should go all the way down till the bar touch your chest on the bench press. If you have pain in your wrist, it means you are doing something wrong, in fact if you ever have hurting pain, it means you are doing something wrong. However in this case I don't think ROM (range of motion) is the reason.
One thing I see most guys do wrong at the gym, is how they hold the bar in their palm. If the bar is in the middle of your palm, your hand is 90 degrees to your arm...guess what, you are going to cry with the pain this will cause on your wrists, especially once you start going heavier on the bench.
The correct way, is to have the bar lie on the inner edge of your palm, ie. right above your wrist, so your hand is more like 35degrees to your arm. This way, the weight lies directly on your arms, so only assisted by the hands, but not held by the hands.
As for going down to your chest, instead of having the bar over your shoulders, it should be closer to your nipples, so your arms is 45 degrees from your body. Next thing you also need to do is, before you start your bench, pull your wings on your back together, and almost stand with your weight on your shoulders instead of the middle of the back. Thats right, pull back your shoulders, this will prevent you from using your shoulders while benching.
All of the above, I learned from powerlifters, and it helps a lot when going heavy on the bench, even when you do over 100kg and do FULL range of motion, all the way down to your chest, pause and back up.
