The bench press is probably the most prominent chest exercise, although it does engage the traps and upper back to some extent.
With that being said, the last thing you’d expect after bench pressing is for your traps to hurt.
However, this can occur, and it can dramatically affect the amount of weight you can press.
So, allow me to explain why this occurs and what you can do to solve it.
There are various reasons why your traps hurt after bench press. Firstly, your traps and upper back muscles are heavily involved during the bench press. In fact, they are trained eccentrically when you press the barbell up. So, a particularly intense or heavy set of bench presses can be felt in your traps and upper back. Furthermore, trap pain can be caused by either squeezing your scapula too hard or not depressing the scapula prior to pressing.
Your Traps Are Involved in the Bench Press
The bench press is viewed as the “go-to” chest exercise for most lifters.
Plus, you’ll also work the shoulders and triceps too.
So, if anything’s going to hurt after bench press, you’d expect it to be one of these muscle groups.
With that being said, the upper back and traps are antagonistic muscle groups to the chest.
Therefore, they will always be involved in some way whenever you bench press.
Basically, when a muscle is contracted, the antagonistic muscle will relax, and vice versa.
However, the traps (and upper back) play a slightly more important role during bench presses.
In effect, your upper back and traps will go through eccentric training when you push the barbell away from your chest.
In fact, the amount of work your upper back and traps have to do is similar to when you lower yourself from a pull up or chin up.
So, it is perfectly natural to have sore traps when you bench press.
Obviously, this feeling will be exaggerated during a particular heavy or intense benching session.
You’re Squeezing Your Scapula Too Hard
One particular form cue for bench press is to retract the scapula.
In fact, you should actually retract and depress the scapula, but I’ll get to this in a moment.
Basically, the main joints used by the bench press are the shoulders and the elbows.
However, when you retract your shoulder blades there isn’t as much stress placed on these joints.
Additionally, retracting your shoulder blades also allows you to bench more effectively.
So, as you can see, pulling your shoulder blades back and down will not only support your joint health, but it will also make you a better bench presser.
With that being said, there is a tendency to squeeze the scapula too hard in order to get yourself into this “safe position”.
In fact, this typically occurs when you’re not used to retracting your shoulder blades.
In truth, there are various exercises which require scapula retraction.
However, if this isn’t a movement that you practice too often then you may find that you typically overdo it.
This is definitely a case of more not being better.
So, if you are squeezing your shoulder blades excessively hard during bench presses it’s likely that your traps will feel very sore afterwards.
You’re Not Depressing Your Scapula
I’ve just mentioned depressing the shoulder blades too when you bench press.
Realistically, prior to benching you want to pull your shoulder blades back and then down.
I frequently liken this to trying to tuck your shoulder blades into your back pockets.
Then again, I’ve spoken about holding an imaginary tennis ball in-between your shoulder blades.
So, it’s not just a case of pulling your shoulder blades back, but also depressing them or pulling them down.
Unfortunately, if you don’t also pull your shoulder blades down (depress them), as well as pulling them back, then you’ll engage the upper traps much more.
This isn’t actually always a p