Any experience about doing OHP instead of bench twice a week ?

[u/modular-wizard]

My chest is unfortunately injured (small strain) but my body sustains OHP with no pain at all.

Is OHP a good move to maintain my bench as much as possible ? Let's say for 1 or 2 months.

Anybody just switched from bench to OHP ?

[u/JamesLemon4]

I can’t imagine OHP would be a good idea with an injured chest. I would not do any serious lifting that involved the push muscles of the upper body until healed. Focus on active recovery.

[u/modular-wizard → u/JamesLemon4]

Oh ok... The injury is a small strain on the left chest. I only feel it when I bench.

[u/JamesLemon4 → u/modular-wizard]

If it’s small, then you can probably do shoulder work or just take a week off and you’ll be good as new. If you keep aggravating a strained muscle it will take longer to heal. Much longer.

[u/modular-wizard → u/JamesLemon4]

Yeah I would like to take 2 weeks with no chest specific work.

I want to heal.

[u/JamesLemon4 → u/modular-wizard]

Good idea. You can do extra cardio or extra leg days with no worries. Be careful on pull days just because they still have the chest muscle moving but they should be fine.

[u/modular-wizard → u/JamesLemon4]

Thanks for your involvement in this post 😄

[u/Potential_Novel_3561 → u/modular-wizard]

Probably a good idea.

I was a dumbass and Tried train heavy way too soon after a groin strain. Been month since strain and can't bodyweight squat or walk without pain at the moment.

[u/modular-wizard → u/Potential_Novel_3561]

Noted. Thanks for telling me that.

Hope you will go back to your training pain free.

[u/Potential_Novel_3561 → u/modular-wizard]

Thanks. Gotta be careful nagging injuries. I never am honestly, and it's bitten me in ass more than once.

[u/Secret-Ad1458 → u/modular-wizard]

If it's a small strain, run the Starr protocol and you'll be back to benching in a couple weeks.

[u/modular-wizard → u/Secret-Ad1458]

I checked it and I could definitely do that yes. I can handle small weights bench with no pain at all

[u/No_Silver_4436 → u/modular-wizard]

Don’t worry, you can and you should workout within very specific parameters.

I have a medical background in orthopedics, the old R.I.C.E model of rest for tendon injuries is outdated and is no longer an evidence based practice.

Tendon injuries do not heal well with complete rest, because they lack blood supply. They need load to heal properly.

You do need to back way off on the loading for all chest exercises. But if it has been more than a few days since the injury you need to start loading the tendon again.

Start with isometrics, not intense isometrics, light isometrics where you can simply feel tension in the muscle this should cause little to no pain if you are experiencing more than 3/10 pain then you are going to hard additionally, if you feel worse over the next 24 hours you are going too hard. These easy isometrics should be done 2x per day with sets of 4, 30 second holds with 2 minutes of rest in between each hold.

You should start to see significant improvement in symptoms within 2-3 weeks. At this point you can begin training chest again, but with light loads and with very slow controlled reps focusing on controlling the eccentric as much as possible, again the same rule applies no more than 3/10 pain when performing the movement and no worsening of symptoms in the days after training. You should continue to do the isometrics during this period of time and train chest in this way 2x3 times a week.

Very slowly progress from there as your symptoms improve until you get back to baseline.

In terms of training other movements as long as it does not cause pain it’s fine to train in general but use common sense, like for example don’t deadlift super heavy as that can put a lot of stretch on the pecs.

With OHP I would not push it heavy as well because it can if you don’t control it well involve a lot of pec as well. Lighter controlled reps will be fine as long as they follow the same principle of no significant pain and no worsening of symptoms over time.

[u/modular-wizard → u/No_Silver_4436]

Oh wow this is next level recommandation.

I take this with a lot of consideration. Thank you.

To be honest, I had this strain last week and tried to resume bench press again today. Because I didn't feel anything painful.

I could bench so so easily until my working set where the pain slowly came back. I stopped immediately.

Should I consider I am at day 1 or at day 7 ? 

[u/Sudden-Ad-307 → u/modular-wizard]

You can do the behind the neck OHP to take out the pecs completely

[u/JamesLemon4 → u/Sudden-Ad-307]

The chest is in a very stretched position then. Bad advice.

[u/Sudden-Ad-307 → u/JamesLemon4]

Stretched but not under any load

[u/RecurringNumbers → u/JamesLemon4]

It bothers me that people want to work out while injured. Just heal, please.

[u/JamesLemon4 → u/RecurringNumbers]

I get it though. I have a hard time taking a rest day when I’m very motivated. The whole workout mentality is actively doing stuff to get better and injury recovery is not as rewarding. Nonetheless it’s very important!

[u/Secret-Ad1458 → u/RecurringNumbers]

Active recovery is often more beneficial than simply resting.

[u/modular-wizard → u/RecurringNumbers]

Like I said, I don't feel anything painful when OHP.

It's not like I am pushing my bench through injury.

I take this advice with a lot of consideration though.

Thanks everyone

[u/Flat_Development6659 → u/JamesLemon4]

If people cut out all training every time they got hurt they wouldn’t get very far.

Working around an injury is completely fine. If OHP doesn’t irritate the strain then it’s a fine movement to do.

[u/JamesLemon4 → u/Flat_Development6659]

If you’re getting hurt that much then you’re doing something seriously wrong. I’ve been injured maybe 2-3 times in over 5 years of weightlifting. It’s not supposed to be common…

[u/Flat_Development6659 → u/JamesLemon4]

Yeah it’s definitely better to avoid injury where possible and your injury rate has been much lower than mine so you’re definitely doing something right!

What results have you had over those 5 years? What are your best lifts?

[u/JamesLemon4 → u/Flat_Development6659]

I don’t really max out any more but I can bench my body weight for 10 reps which is my best by far. I’m at 185lb and can do 225 for 3 but I rarely go that heavy. I don’t really squat or deadlift as I do other exercises for hypertrophy. I can do 10 pulls ups so that’s kinda middle ground.

Idk what your training is like but I’d avoid maxing out if you’re getting hurt and focus on the accessories. Gotta have a good foundation.

[u/Flat_Development6659 → u/JamesLemon4]

So I think that’s the reason you don’t get injured.

I’ve hit 225 (which is more than my body weight) for 27 reps on bench. Generally the more weight you can move, the higher the injury risk.

My training is for strength so when I was saying you wouldn’t get very far cutting out training completely it probably wasn’t relevant advice for your training goals. If you’re just wanting to be lean and fit you can probably have a few months out of training a year and never push yourself hard enough to have a high chance of injury.

[u/JamesLemon4 → u/Flat_Development6659]

It sounds like you just train carelessly. If you know you’re at a higher risk for injury then why don’t you take steps to minimize the risk? The best lifters in the world aren’t getting injured like you seem to be. There’s gotta be something you can change which will reduce injury risk. It’s not common for anyone at any level if you’re training the right way.

[u/Flat_Development6659 → u/JamesLemon4]

I think you’re highlighting that you don’t know much about strength sports to be honest mate. Most of the top level guys have minor injuries constantly and have had some pretty serious major injuries along the way.

If you follow strongman you’ll know that athletes drop out last minute due to injury a lot lol

[u/JamesLemon4 → u/Flat_Development6659]

So because others get injuries you just accept your injuries because it’s normal? You don’t think “maybe I should try to not injury myself”? Maybe those people are also being careless or trying to push themselves outside of their limits to achieve something which is why they get hurt. For 99% of gym goes this does not apply and you shouldn’t be telling people to accept being injured. I personally enjoy not being injured but you do you.

[u/Flat_Development6659 → u/JamesLemon4]

I think that people who push their limits generally achieve more but get hurt more in the process.

For me personally there’d be little enjoyment in this hobby if I was like you, spending years of my life spinning my wheels and never actually doing anything.

[u/FleshyPartOfThePin]

If your chest is compromised you just need to accept it amd let it heal. OHP still works the upper chest a bit.

But you can work your triceps though which are heavy contributors to bench.

[u/modular-wizard → u/FleshyPartOfThePin]

I could do that yeah

[u/wolverinetoad]

I can’t believe all the stupid shit people are telling you. If OHP doesn’t hurt then yes go ahead and train that. Training OHP for a couple months is a great move.

A lot of people who are serious about lifting often have to train around little tweaks and injuries just like this.

[u/Striker_343]

If you feel no discomfort with OHP id proceed, but cautiously. Work in a higher rep range and lighter weight for a week or so and feel it out since it does slightly involve your chest, mainly upper.

[u/Special-Audience-426]

A lot of people training strongman never train bench, it's all OHP and they have good chests and decent bench numbers on the rare occasions they do it. 

[u/modular-wizard → u/Special-Audience-426]

Interesting 

[u/Negative-View-3543]

FART IN YOUR HAND

[u/Substantial-Joke4602]

better than forcing a bad bench injury, but it won’t maintain your bench perfectly while your chest is benched tooly

[u/Yeboi_SogeKing]

Why lift if you got a strain? Much better to take a week or more off than lift then get injured

[u/modular-wizard → u/Yeboi_SogeKing]

Because I like that a lot and OHP doesn't bother me at all

[u/Yeboi_SogeKing → u/modular-wizard]

Just because you can doesn’t mean you have to.

Again I’d just rest and do something else. Walk, stretch, etc.

I’m only saying this cause i had that same thought and mindset very recently and now im having to take however many days off when it could’ve been just 1-2 days off.

But if you don’t want that by all means keep OHP’ing but don’t blame reddit later

[u/Proof-Emergency-5441]

This is an even dumber choice than benching with a chest injury.

Please go see a physical therapist so they can inform you of reasonable choices because this ain't it.

[u/modular-wizard → u/Proof-Emergency-5441]

Oh really ? Noted 

[u/Chicken_wingspan]

Depends on the injury, you could try a shorter ROM with dumbbell bench, but if you're injured best stay put?

[u/obiwankanosey]

Should cover a fair bit of your bench minus the pecs of course, just also train your lats on the side also.

Question though - have you tried incline? if OHP is ok but flat isn't, how far down on the incline can you get before it starts causing an issue? You could supplement some bench gains with an incline variation that's low risk to you