Awesome. SO I'm not the only person with shoulder issues from benching with a barbell. I think it's a cross between having really long arms and a not so good shoulder to begin with. When I go down to my chest it really puts a lot of strain on my shoulder and stretches it way out. I also find I have to take an extremely wide grip because if I take a regular grip the bend that occurs in my elbow when I bring it to my chest causes a nerve in my elbow to get inflamed. This caused me to stop lifting barbell and just do dumbell bench. The highest I've ever been in dumbells was doing a set with 95's.
Currently I'm doing sets on a barbell bench at 115 pounds and less!! Yes you heard me right. I've been injured with my back from doing a stupid pushup routine. Still not 100% and it has been over 2 months. Anyway I'm doing slow barbell with light weight because anymore than this and I'm afraid my back will go into a spasm at this point. I'm building up my core to prevent future injury in this region as I was doing no low back workout and no abs (felt I had more important body parts to work out). I can't really do dumbells because I'm afraid that when I rock up with the weights when my set is completed that I'll reinjure back and that's why I'm doing barbell.