Sternum pains after lat pull downs?

[NZnoob]

Hello fellow NZ gym goers,

In my work out routine, I do chest on Mondays, and back on Thursdays with nothing in between. Hence you would imagine that soreness from chest would be non-existent by the time its time to do back - so I doubt this is caused from over working my chest on a Monday.

For some reason, when I do lat pull downs I get a strong pain in my sternum area.

Does anyone know what this might be caused by? As far as I know, that exercise does not use the chest area in anyway.

Two things to note:

The lat pull down I do is with individual handles, that you sit directly below, hence the movement is almost identical to a wide grip pull up, there is no pulling of weights towards you, its always directly down.

I do not get this pain on chest work outs :/

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

[Pseudonym]

Is it at the bottom of the movement you feel the pain? If so, perhaps it's flexibility-related.

Can you do this?

[startinfromscratch]

Hello fellow NZ gym goers,

In my work out routine, I do chest on Mondays, and back on Thursdays with nothing in between. Hence you would imagine that soreness from chest would be non-existent by the time its time to do back - so I doubt this is caused from over working my chest on a Monday.

For some reason, when I do lat pull downs I get a strong pain in my sternum area.

Does anyone know what this might be caused by? As far as I know, that exercise does not use the chest area in anyway.

Two things to note:

The lat pull down I do is with individual handles, that you sit directly below, hence the movement is almost identical to a wide grip pull up, there is no pulling of weights towards you, its always directly down.

I do not get this pain on chest work outs :/

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

mate i had major troubles with this awhile back, i will share my experience with you. i would get the same ache-pain in my sternum whenever i would do anything overhead, ie ohp, pulldowns, but despite it being in my sternum, chest work of all kinds was fine. annoyed me for way too long. i went to the adidas sports clininc, and the dude told me i was really tight and inflexible in the thoracic spine. so he worked that out and the sternum pain went away... for awhile.

when it came back i was down here (south is.) so went to a local physio, who told me that while thoracic tightness contributed, the main cause was tight, inflexible pecs. the sports massages on my chest were painful as f*ck, as my chest was just a knotted mess, for years apparently.

So i recommend you prepare for some hurt, find a decent sports masseuse that will do what needs to be done, 3-4 hard sesh's will be all it would/should take.

also, use a doorway and stretch out both pecs EVERY night, for 2 weeks, then keep up regular stretching after that.

let us know how you go.

[NZnoob]

Thank you both of you for your in put, sorry I could not reply sooner, had a super busy week.

Perhaps it is a flexibility issue, I only started working out properly 1 year ago, coming from a build that could be best compared to a prisoner of war, with absolutely no chest muscles whatsoever, so possibly my gym manufactured chest and lack of stretching is the issue.

To address that video, its strange, given that effectively a shoulder press is just the pull down in reverse, I get pains in the pull down, (yes, at the bottom of the motion), but not in the should press

I am taking a week off the gym over the uni break, but if it still remains when I restart, I guess I shall have to see the specialists

Good to hear im not abnormal though, and others have experienced it.