Benching and Pain During Dips

I have to start this post by saying that the squats on Thursday wrecked me.  I jogged to the gym on Saturday (it's really close by) but you could barely call it a jog.  It was more limping and hopping than anything else.  I wanted to do cleans, but my legs were just too messed up.  Instead, I benched.  Felt pretty good, though I tire out quick.  Then, since they did such a good job of destroying me last time, I did skull crushers again.  And they destroyed me again.  Finally, I was going to just kind of finish out with a few sets of bodyweight dips.  I did 2 sets of 15... and by the end of the 2nd set, the inside of my chest felt so tight, like something was wrong with my breastplate.  I decided to call it quits and headed home.  For the record, a few hours later, my chest "popped" or cracked the way your knuckles would, and the pressure was released.

This had happened to me a few weeks ago, the last time I did dips.  The pressure built up during my set, and then my chest was tight for several hours afterwards.  It wasn't until the next day till I finally popped my chest while stretching, and it was a serious relief.  Doing some google researching online, I found a few possible reasons for this happening.

The most plausible explanation is that my chest is getting disproportionately stronger than my upper back.  This is pulling my sternum, especially when I lean forward to do dips.  Pressure builds up, and has to be released by "popping" my sternum back into place.  This could be true, I've been really concentrating on bench lately, and haven't been doing much back.  But... I still DO back.  It's not like I don't do rows or chinups.  I don't do rear delts often though.  I'll be adding them to my deadlifts tonight. 

The other reasons I've found were more medical problems or disorders, which I don't think I have.  I could also just be leaning forward too far during dips too.  It's something that I need to watch.

For the record, all of this "research" is just reading through posts people have made on various forums.  I don't know how true or false any of it is.  If the problem persists, I'll go to a doctor.

12/10/11

Bench Press - 3 sets

95x8 (warmup)

135x6 (warmup)

195x4

185x4

185x3

Skull Crushers! - 3ish sets

70x8

80x2

70x7

Dips - 2 sets

15 bodyweight

15 bodyweight

Tonight the plan is deadlifts.  Going for 3 sets at 305, getting at least 5 reps on one set.  That would be a good thing.  At one point my 1 rep max was 305.