Let me share a quick story this week about a client who transformed her shoulder pain. Then, quick update on our workshop and answer to the caffeine poll below!

A recent client of mine was seeing me between intermittent short trips to Calgary between her adventure-filled year of world travels on a bike. What started as a quest to help her with knee pain (which we quickly resolved), turned into a quest to get her shoulders back on track, since she couldn't lift her arm in any direction without it pinching.

I tell you this story because pinching is one of the main complaints I hear about shoulders, and because many people don't think there's any fix for the pain. They often start avoiding movements that trigger the pinch, but over time, this only makes things worse because the menu of things they can do begins to narrow more and more over until their functionality is near zero.

Similar to how we built our Shoulder Foundations program, we started with more neutral elbow work like the Cable ER, neutral, and the Cable IR, neutral. That eventually progressed up to the 45 degree abducted variations like THIS one and even to 90 degree ones like THIS. We found Supported Hanging variations that didn't bother the pinch more than a 3/10, and progressed to Full Hangs with hand grip variations that hurt less than others. Eventually, all hanging felt great, including FULL Chinups!

After a few months of progressing things while she travelled the WHOLE world, she sent in THIS amazing review:

We love making shoulder pain a thing of the past so you can get back to the sports you love. Use code SarahsStory for 20% off Shoulder Foundations til Nov 17th.

That also happens to be the day we're hosting our "Reverse Engineering your 2025 Training Plan" (for endurance athletes) - with a few spots left... SIGN UP HERE.

Lastly - 67.9% of you answered RIGHT IN our poll 2 newsletters ago.

Yes, caffeine is indeed a proven endurance booster, and here’s why it’s the go-to choice: Research shows that caffeine can improve endurance performance by as much as 2-7%. That’s a significant edge, especially for longer events like marathons. For a 3-hour marathoner, this could mean saving up to 10 minutes on race day​!

Here’s a quick tip if you’re looking to use caffeine strategically: aim for 3-6 mg per kg of body weight about an hour before your race. We recommend getting that in the form of caffeine pills or caffeinated gels because the dose is more predictable than a cup of coffee or tea. Just make sure you’ve practiced with your ideal dose to avoid any surprises when it counts. FYI, Caffeine takes at least 15 minutes to absorb and peaks in your bloodstream 45-60 minutes after you take it (so you could take it 2-3x during a marathon if you've practiced that before).

Yours in physiology,

Carla