I read a Frederic Delavier’s book « Strength Training Anatomy » and there is good stuff.

Frequent bodybuilding’s athletes are often confronted with acromioclavicular diseases.

This doesn’t happen in the same way as with sports like rugby, football, riding or combat sport with projections where the shoulder joint can be damaged by a fall or violent contact which leads to acromioclavicular dislocation with a ligament tear.

In bodybuilding, it’s micotraumatism caused by excessive, repetitive and poorly controlled work of the shoulder joint.

The pain happens little by little and after a while, pain prevents doing exercises like bench press or dips.

When doctors examine the acromioclavicular joint, it’s painful to pressure and slightly swollen.

It’s a problem without real gravity but the cure is long. The joint capsule and ligaments stretched because of inflammation, which give play to the joint. It takes some times for the entire articulation to return to its inital size.

Firstly, it’s necessary to stop the upper body training for 2 weeks

Note : from a bone view’s point, the upper limb connected to the bust by the clavicle which goes from the sternum to the scapla. In bodybuilding workouts, clavicular joints are often over-solicited and this create inflammatory pathologies of wear and tear.

Back to train

When upper body workout starts again, it’s necessary not to do bench press, dips and all movements with pushed down for at least 2 months. This is important to avoid re-stretching acromioclavicular ligaments.

Military press with barbell/dumbbell, inclined bench press and all movements with pusched up are allowed as they stabilize acromioclavicular joint. These movements limit the risk of ligament stretching.

If these tips aren’t respected. The joint inflammation will continue causing intra-articular calcifications and seriously compromising a sport career.

Prevention :

These acromio-calvicular inflammations often occur after excessive training with the bench press due to a poorly controlled movements, with a too rapid descent, rebounding on the torso, sets too long and jerky.

The bench press in powerlifter’s style can also trigger inflammatory pathologies.

It’s for this reason that, at the least suspicious pain, it’s necessary to stop these movements for a time and to replace them by cable chest fly, dumbbells movement with a certain inclinaison of the bench for continue working chest.

Share this articles if you think it can help someone you know. Thank you.

-Steph