What causes pectoral tears?

[Donny]

Today's gear heads hit a muscle group once a week.

Powerlifters commonly do the bench, squat and deadlift once per week each and also several assistance exercises for each lift on the day.

The pre-steroid oldtimers hit a muscle group it 2-3 times a week with 6-12 sets per workout.

So, maybe that's right for natties.

I don't recall hearing about torn pecs in the 70s and early 80s.

I do think the use of anabolics nowadays without building a solid base from time spent natural training has something to do with the current frequency of pec tears.
The connective tissues just never get the chance to toughen up before being subjected to heavy loads.

Iīve never used steroids & i made good gains on a 5 day split, lots of overlap when training the muscle groups because you canīt isolate a muscle group entirely.

[BB]

Bill Kazmaier tore his pec in the 80s. I had never heard of anyone experiencing this before.

This is an interesting thing, I, too, don't recall many torn pecs pre late 70s (although I wonder if that's due to lax reporting not specify type of injury). It would be interesting to see a breakdown of pre late 70s pec injuries versus lifter weight, maximum poundage lifted, and total training time.

In my mind the older lifters were fatter, had more time under bar to reach their records, and the maximum poundage was light compared to the newer lifters.