My left shoulder has been a niggling part of my life for more than 30 years. Not as one constant pain. More as a limitation I learned to work around.
In certain positions it would twang like a guitar string connected to a nerve. I would grab it, say, "Oh, my shoulder," and carry on. That was my shoulder. Overtime it has progressively worsened.
Where it began
It began when I was about 18/19 although I cannot pin point the date. A “friend” spear-tackled me onto a bitumen road. We had been drinking, and my left arm wasn't working properly afterward. So I put it in a sling and carried on. As a foolish young man, I didn't see a doctor or do any rehab. About a day later it started to come good, so I let it go.
For years, the twangs came and went, caused by specific weak movements, or random arm positions. Then I got into working out at the gym properly. Sponge moved offices into the city, and training became part of my workday. I built biceps and triceps, and those cannonball shoulders I was proud of. Gym wasn't just exercise. It became part of my life and identity.
Then one day I did a dip with an open grip and felt a much bigger twang. A painful one. I had to stop. An ultrasound as a result suggested bursitis. I tried osteopathy and other soft tissue therapy, but my shoulder never felt quite the same. Now it clicked and popped when I shoulder pressed. It felt weak. So overhead pressing became something I couldn't do at the level I used to.
I kept training and looking for an answer. Dry needling. Subscapularis massage. Acu-Energetics. Chiropractic treatment. Some of it gave me relief, especially the soft tissue work, even if having someone's thumbs dug into your armpit is not exactly a good time. The relief didn't hold. The dull ache became more regular, the movement more restricted, and the weakness harder to ignore.
I didn't want to give up the gym. But eventually I got tired of working out in pain and stopped training my shoulders. That was a big shift for me.
The 2021 diagnosis
In May 2021, I saw an orthopaedic shoulder surgeon in Brisbane. His written report described quite severe osteoarthritis in my left shoulder, likely related to the original injury. It recorded restricted movement and weakness. He wrote that replacement surgery might eventually be needed, but wasn't indicated then, and that it should be delayed as long as possible. He also wrote that physiotherapy would not help.
What I remember hearing in the consultation was that a shoulder replacement was the only way to fix the underlying problem. I also remember being told that a replacement had a limited lifespan, around 8 years (and maximum weight recommendation of only 14kg!). While those details aren't in the written letter, it shaped how I understood the choice. I want to be strong and comfortable past 100. The prospect of multiple replacements did not appeal to me.
Later I read Tony Robbins' Life Force and spoke to a doctor he profiled in it. Dr. Abhinav Gautam, who practices in the USA, had an alternative procedure. After looking at the imaging the shoulder surgeon reviewed, he told me he could fix my shoulder in 3 sessions. It would have meant international travel and several thousand dollars. I didn't go at the time because of the Covid passport restrictions. In the meantime, he suggested strength training around the shoulder. I put that on the back burner too.
The baseline
I still worked out, but I avoided shoulders and compensated with how I positioned myself. Sometimes I would wake in pain because I had slept with my arm somewhere I would not let it go while I was conscious.
So my life was regular pain, restricted movement, and a lack of strength in my shoulder. That was the baseline I brought into the experiments.