How I built a GPT to fix my rotator cuff
This is NOT medical advice.
I was mid-set on shoulder presses when I heard it—click, pop. No pain, just weird. The kind of thing that makes you pause, roll your shoulder, and think, ‘that can’t be good’.
Months later and I’m still left with an unsettling clicking and popping whenever I rotate my arms a certain way. That’s when the real workout began—figuring out what was wrong and how to fix it.
the endless rabbit hole of diy research
Like any self-respecting gym bro, I went straight to the holy trinity of self-diagnosis: YouTube, TikTok, and Reddit. Hours of scrolling later, I had a list of possible causes:
shoulder impingement
overdeveloped front delts overpowering weak stabilizers
poor scapular control
and way more
Every video, every forum thread seemed to contradict the last. One guy swore by endless band exercises. Another blamed bench pressing. Someone else insisted it was all about thoracic mobility. I even came across a $97 online course promising the ‘ultimate shoulder fix’. I almost bought it.
I felt like I was drowning in advice but starving for clarity. That’s when I had an idea—why not throw AI at it?
enter physio gpt – automating the process
I built a custom GPT, structuring it to ask the right diagnostic questions:
Where’s the issue?
When did it start?
What makes it worse?
Any red flags?
Then, I ran my own symptoms through it. In less than a minute, it spit out an action plan—one that matched almost exactly what I had pieced together manually over several days.
That’s when it hit me. I had just compressed an entire research process into sixty seconds.
Is this a doctor? Hell no. Does it work? So far, yes!
the action plan it gave me (and why it worked)
Here’s what Physio GPT recommended and why it made sense:
stop overhead pressing for now – avoid movements that aggravate the issue.
prioritize scapular control – strengthen the stabilizers to improve shoulder mechanics.
start working out other parts of the shoulder to balance out the muscle group
Instead of second-guessing every move in my routine, I had a structured plan and clear adjustments. I’m a month in and while my shoulder still clicks, it’s less than before and especially after my workouts that focus on shoulder balance.
the bigger lesson – ai as a shortcut for self-improvement
This wasn’t just about fixing my shoulder. It was about efficiency.
We’re at a point where AI can dramatically compress research time for anything—training, diet, recovery. If it took me hours to piece together a rehab plan, and AI could do it in one minute, what else could it accelerate? Sure, it’s not a license physical therapist - but in lieu of a real one, this is still directionally helpful.
If you’re stuck—whether it’s fitness, nutrition, or anything else—stop guessing and start leveraging tools that think faster than you can Google.
Or, you know, spend another ten hours watching mobility drills on YouTube. Up to you.
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