His surgeon and his doctor told him the same thing: he needed two new shoulders. At 61, with four rotator cuff surgeries behind him, complete tears in his left shoulder, very little left in his right, and a biceps that could no longer be reattached, it was hard to argue.

But this is a man who used to own a gym, ran marathons, and later owned an MMA gym where he trained fighters from amateurs all the way to the UFC. Today he works alone, climbing roofs and buildings and extending wall ladders two and three stories high. He knew new shoulders would bring restrictions that would completely change his life. So he started looking for a way to avoid shoulder replacement surgery.

Discomfort In Every Area

The shoulder pain was in everything he did. Pushing or pulling hurt his shoulder. At night, every movement woke him up, sometimes as often as every 15 minutes. At work, he had to lift a ladder five, six, or seven times a day, and it was becoming unsafe. Carrying things up those ladders was getting very hard too.

Before finding us, he relied on the papers he was handed after each surgery, the most minimal physical therapy, along with his normal weight workouts. It wasn’t sustainable. He was blowing out a shoulder every four to five years. He also couldn’t get in and work with his fighters anymore, because any pressure on his arms would flare up his shoulders for the next week.

The Turning Point

While researching shoulder PT online, he found a program he could do at his own pace, in the gym downstairs, without having to drive anywhere.

The plan started with range of motion and stretching, separating all the muscles and movements around the shoulder. Once that felt good, he moved into bands, then light weights and heavier bands. Because everything was explained to him- what each muscle does and why each exercise was there- he trusted the process from the start.

The app itself was new territory. “I’m 61. I didn’t start with computers growing up,” he said. After two days on the app he knew where everything was at and said it was user friendly.

Around that same two-week mark, something bigger happened. He was sleeping through the night with no pain.

Results

• Sleeping through the night with no pain within about two weeks
• Lifting his wall ladders without a problem
• Climbing roofs and buildings, reaching out and pulling himself forward again
• Carrying things up ladders and lifting from below his waist to shoulder level much more easily
• No pain in just about anything he does, apart from extreme movements
• After 12 weeks, operations are no longer part of his thinking

What Changed And Why It Worked?

His old routine wasn’t making him better. This program worked everything around the shoulder, from the neck to the traps to the delts, instead of zeroing in on one spot the way most physical therapy for shoulder pain does. He found that refreshing, and he noticed the program actually did what it said it would.

In his words: “Yours is very in-depth and specialized. It changed everything.”

What He’d Tell Someone With the Same Problem

For anyone living with a full rotator cuff tear or a biceps that won’t reattach, his advice is simple: “I would highly recommend them doing it.”

Before, his future looked like more surgeries and replacements. Now he plans to keep doing what he’s been taught, and he believes he can avoid shoulder replacement surgery altogether.

“I don’t see any surgeries in my future now,” he said. “Things are back to how they used to be before all the bad injuries.”