Dumbbell Press Internal Rotation/Proper Form?

[xXGreenXx90]

I have a new fear and it's dumbbell presses. I've been practicing my form for at least 5+ months now and it's pretty solid. I push my chest out, arch my back and decompress my scapula with my shoulder blades pulled back. However I have a habit of my shoulders raising and not staying back when I press. More times than I'd like to count I've experienced this popping in my right shoulder where it feels like my arm is gonna dislocate. (I don't feel any pain)

This feeling in my shoulder causes my arm to slowly lower until I am forced to drop the weights, it's likely coming from internal rotation.

Yesterday I didn't eat as much and got 4-5 hours of sleep which might have contributed to being weaker today. I thought maybe I was lifting too heavy but a couple days ago I was able to get 8 reps with the same weight.


Has anyone experience this? I'm not sure how to get my depth right with my forearms/elbows. My forearms are coming forward when I try to position my elbows under my nipple at a 90 degree angle, forcing my elbow to flare out which is what I'm trying to avoid.


On a side note: I'm having difficulty retracting my scapula after laying on the bench with a heavy weight, does anyone have any tips for getting into position? I've been straining my neck to briefly create an arch to get them tucked back. I've tried retracting my shoulders before leaning back but I can't keep them like that and my back rolls along like a wave until my head touches the bench, that's when I start pressing with my neck to create the arch.


Thanks for reading!

[Szyszak]

I have a new fear and it's dumbbell presses. I've been practicing my form for at least 5+ months now and it's pretty solid. I push my chest out, arch my back and decompress my scapula with my shoulder blades pulled back. However I have a habit of my shoulders raising and not staying back when I press. More times than I'd like to count I've experienced this popping in my right shoulder where it feels like my arm is gonna dislocate. (I don't feel any pain)

This feeling in my shoulder causes my arm to slowly lower until I am forced to drop the weights, it's likely coming from internal rotation.

Yesterday I didn't eat as much and got 4-5 hours of sleep which might have contributed to being weaker today. I thought maybe I was lifting too heavy but a couple days ago I was able to get 8 reps with the same weight.


Has anyone experience this? I'm not sure how to get my depth right with my forearms/elbows. My forearms are coming forward when I try to position my elbows under my nipple at a 90 degree angle, forcing my elbow to flare out which is what I'm trying to avoid.


On a side note: I'm having difficulty retracting my scapula after laying on the bench with a heavy weight, does anyone have any tips for getting into position? I've been straining my neck to briefly create an arch to get them tucked back. I've tried retracting my shoulders before leaning back but I can't keep them like that and my back rolls along like a wave until my head touches the bench, that's when I start pressing with my neck to create the arch.


Thanks for reading!

If you have lack of internal rotation and you lowering the bar to your chest and your shoulder goes forward it stretching a lot subscapularis which main role is to prevent anterior glide and stabilize bone in the socket especially when your arms are over head. If you started to experience this popping you might lenghten ur subscapularis which gonna make your internal rotation even worse but your external rotation should be too big in that case. I would stretch out the posterior capsule in your case, all external rotators muscles and strenghten subscapularis. And dont fully retract your scapula, think more about pushing your chest up. It should be natural movement. Next thing is, you cannot only bench pressing with retraction, you should also include exercises where you can easily moves your scapula like push up and a lot of over head presses. If your serratus wont be strenghten along, you can create more shoulders issues.

[xXGreenXx90]

If you have lack of internal rotation and you lowering the bar to your chest and your shoulder goes forward it stretching a lot subscapularis which main role is to prevent anterior glide and stabilize bone in the socket especially when your arms are over head. If you started to experience this popping you might lenghten ur subscapularis which gonna make your internal rotation even worse but your external rotation should be too big in that case. I would stretch out the posterior capsule in your case, all external rotators muscles and strenghten subscapularis. And dont fully retract your scapula, think more about pushing your chest up. It should be natural movement. Next thing is, you cannot only bench pressing with retraction, you should also include exercises where you can easily moves your scapula like push up and a lot of over head presses. If your serratus wont be strenghten along, you can create more shoulders issues.

Wow. Great in depth response, thank you.

"And dont fully retract your scapula, think more about pushing your chest up. It should be natural movement." This really helped.

My program includes standing shoulder presses after dumbbell press. I didn't know the reason behind it, really cool.