What Tendons Can Be Injured From Bench Pressing?

Although the bench press is a great exercise for building chest and arm muscles, it can pose risks to lifters who push themselves too hard or don't follow proper form. Three joint areas--the shoulders, the elbows and the wrists--are involved in executing a traditional bench press, and each one of those joints is subject to tendon damage and injuries over the course of a weight-training regimen.

Shoulder

• Because it's a ball-and-socket joint, five muscles control the shoulder and its complex movement. Shoulders bear the brunt of the work in a bench-press exercise, and the combination of the complex musculature and heavy load on the shoulders makes it susceptible to training-related injuries. Injuries to rotator cuff tendons---the subscapularis, the supraspinatus, the infraspinatus, the teres minor---are the most frequent injuries caused by heavy bench pressing.

Elbow

• Anatomically speaking, the elbow joint isn't as complicated as the shoulder and is the most difficult to injure if using proper form while doing bench-press lifts. Its hinge-joint construction is operated by two muscles and tendons. The medial epicondyle tendon affixes the muscle to the interior of the elbow joint, while the lateral epicondyle affixes to the outer portion of the elbow. Both can suffer injuries from overexertion and, more frequently, improper form.

Wrist

• Although the wrist doesn't perform much lifting action in a bench press, it needs to be strong enough to support the weight of the bar without buckling. Joining the arm to the hand, the wrist actually is a series of several closely linked joints that work in unison to control the hand. With many muscles and ligaments at work, many potential tendon injuries can be suffered in the course of a bench-press regimen. The volar radial carpal ligament sits on the palm side of the wrist, while the dorsal radial carpal ligament is on the backside of the wrist. Both control the major flexion in the wrist and can be torn or stressed in heavy-lifting situations. Other ligaments control other flexing motions of the hand (the volar collateral, volar radial ulnar, ulnar collateral and the volar intercarpal) and can also be damaged by lifting weights.