7 Things I learned from rehabbing my own shoulder this summer

This summer, I found myself back on the rehab journey; this time, not as a coach or practitioner, but as the patient. My left shoulder, the same one I’ve dislocated and had two surgeries on, decided it needed another round of attention.

What started as frustration turned into one of the most valuable learning experiences I’ve had in years.

Here are the seven key lessons that came from rehabbing my own shoulder.

1. Injuries Increase Empathy

Getting injured is a great reminder of what so many of our clients go through. It’s easy to forget the day-to-day struggle when you’re on the other side of the treatment table.

Pain, frustration, uncertainty. It’s all real, and it affects more than just the body.

Rather than seeing this as a setback, I treated it as an opportunity to reconnect with that experience and become better at helping others navigate their own shoulder problems.

2. Weakness Made Me Feel Vulnerable

My shoulder never felt unstable this time, but it felt weak and that was almost worse.

That weakness brought back old memories, old fears, and a sense of vulnerability I didn’t like one bit.

It reminded me of something simple but powerful: strength is armour.

The stronger we are, the more resilient we feel; physically and mentally.

3. Night Pain Sucks

Being woken up at 2 a.m. by a painful shoulder is miserable. That deep ache, the stiffness when you roll over, and the grogginess in the morning... it’s relentless.

Sleep is one of the biggest contributors to recovery, performance, and overall well-being, so protecting it became a non-negotiable. Knowing that I could change my night pain through consistent rehab gave me the motivation to stay on track.

Sleep well, heal better.

4. It Took Time

Longer than I’d hoped, to be honest. But that’s rehab. It rarely moves in a straight line.

I kept coming back to an analogy we often use with clients:

Stop obsessing over the small daily fluctuations. Zoom out and look at the trend.

If the overall trajectory is improving, you’re on the right track. If it’s not, change the strategy, but stay patient.

5. Simplicity Works

Despite having access to every tool and method imaginable, the thing that made the biggest difference was simplicity.

My approach was straightforward:

• Move my way out of pain.

• Do what felt good.

• Avoid what aggravated it.

When I identified my weak links; my neck and subscapularis, and focused on strengthening them, the turnaround was remarkable. Sometimes the most effective plan is also the simplest one.

6. It Takes Patience

There were moments when I wanted to push harder or rush the process, but the shoulder wasn’t ready. Rehab often feels like peeling back the layers of an onion; you do some work, see how it responds, then adjust.

The pain shifted, moved around, and showed up in different ways. Even with the best plan, it still needed time. The key was maintaining momentum without setting myself back.

Progress, not perfection.

7. Appropriate Rest

Ironically, the biggest breakthrough came after four days off training.

It wasn’t the rest alone that helped; it was the combination of appropriate rest and appropriate training. I see too many people trying to power through shoulder rehab while keeping their intense training schedule unchanged. Sometimes that works; often it doesn’t.

You can’t force your way through a shoulder injury. You have to balance the right kind of stimulus with the right amount of rest. That’s where recovery really happens.

Final Thoughts

Rehabbing my own shoulder reminded me that the process is rarely linear, never easy, but always worth it. It deepened my empathy, sharpened my approach, and reinforced that the basics; strength, patience, simplicity, and rest still matter most.

If you’re in the middle of your own shoulder journey, stay the course. Look for progress in the trendline, not the day-to-day noise.

You’ll get there.

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