In Praise of the Human Shoulder

How often do you think about your shoulders?

Probably not much unless you play a throwing sport or lift weights. Then you’ve likely noticed how easy it is to injure your shoulder, even develop labral tears. Shoulder injuries can be annoying. I had shoulder pain for years from weight lifting and tennis. The shoulder’s tricky like that—it's elastic, unpredictable. But shoulder pain only becomes a real problem if you can’t sleep at night.

The shoulder heals slower than other joints because it evolved to sacrifice stability for mobility. It’s built for motion, not durability. You can’t fully rest it, even with basic everyday tasks. And the limited blood flow to the tendons drags out recovery. Compared to your knees or hips, shoulder injuries stick around far longer than expected. But that price comes with a trade-off. The human shoulder allows useful range of motion. That’s the lesson of life, everything in nature is a give-and-take.

How did Humans Defeat Nature?

But this trade-off has a purpose. The human race’s ability to conquer nature boils down to one critical thing: the evolution of the shoulder. Without it, we’d still be huddled in caves, barely surviving. The shoulder gave us the power to make and use tools, which expanded our cognitive abilities and allowed our brains to grow.

Most people point to larger brains, bipedalism, fire, or tool-making as the reasons for human dominance. But it’s simpler than that. The shoulder’s evolution is the single most important change that allowed humanity to thrive. Without it, there’d be no tools, no progress, no bigger brains—just survival in the dark.

The human shoulder is drastically different from other animals and even our primate relatives. It was originally adapted for hanging from trees. As our ancestors began walking upright, the shoulder joint moved lower on the chest, the shoulder blade shifted to the back, and it gained more range of motion. Initially, this allowed for basic tool-making. But over time—about 2 million years later—it evolved even further, giving humans the unique ability to throw, an essential skill for hunting, defense, and, ultimately, survival.

Throwing Changed Everything

Throwing changed everything. Compared to other animals, humans are poor at climbing, jumping, and sprinting. We’re very weak compared to the animals. However, throwing is one physical skill where Homo sapiens truly excel. Adult male chimpanzees can throw objects overhand at around 20 mph, but even 8-year-old boys can throw baseballs at 40 mph. Professional baseball pitchers can reach nearly 100 mph, with the fastest recorded pitch hitting 105 mph. There is evidence our ancestors were all basically olympian javelin throwers in ability. 

Eventually the rest of our body started evolving to accommodate us becoming a throwing animal

• The clavicle in modern humans is positioned lower and farther back compared to that of Neanderthals and early hominins. This shift allowed the shoulder joint to move more freely, increasing the ability to rotate the arm in multiple planes.

• Increased torso rotation co-evolved with shoulder mobility, allowing early humans to twist efficiently and transfer energy from the lower to the upper body for throwing, walking, and running.

• The wrist gained finer control and flexibility, allowing whip-like acceleration, complementing the shoulder’s evolution for more effective throwing.

Throwing turned us into dangerous hunters.

But crucially, it helped us to survive as a self-defense tool. Imagine living among lions, tigers and bears. Ever throw a rock at an animal? They get very confused and startled. It’s like magic to them. They run away.

It’s even with us today. Think of when you’re feeling threatened. We instinctively reach for something to throw when we feel a fight is going to happen. starting a fight. Throwing is a deep part of us.

In This Newsletter

1) Humans vs Neanderthals

2) Projectile Mindset: The shoulder's evolution didn’t just change our physical capabilities, it sparked a mental shift toward long distance thinking. The projectile mindset—born in the act of throwing—is a fundamental part of what pushed humanity forward, from spears to spaceships.

3) How Should the Evolved Shoulder Shape Our Exercise? The evolved shoulder, built for mobility and precision, should guide us toward exercises that enhance strength, stability, and functional movement.

The Shoulder Allowed Us to Defeat Neanderthals

I’ve never seen anyone else argue this. But I think humans defeated the neanderthals because we just utilized projectile weapons and they could not. It is like having a military vs an air-force against an opponent with no planes.

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Humans are a tool making species.

But the type of tools we can create are only useful if we can use them. Throwing opened a whole range of options utilizing concepts such as leverage, like the Atlatl

Tools can change us as well. The ability to strike from a distance pushed Homo sapiens into thinking about new tactics. Strategic thinking, coordination, precision. They made weapons, practiced ambushes, worked together.

But we weren’t the ones who could create tools. The deep past was full of different hominins. There was one human-like creature that was bigger and stronger than us. The Neanderthal. No one knows why us humans out competed them and eventually drove them to extinction. But I think it’s because of our shoulder.

Neanderthals were physically powerful. Neanderthal shoulder structure, with its shorter clavicle and different scapular positioning, was adapted for close-range thrusting and power-based tasks. Neanderthals were built for strength rather than precision and range and were less capable of throwing projectiles. They were berserkers. They rushed at you with spears. They engaged prey and enemies up close,

But they possibly couldn’t develop advanced tactics like humans could. Neanderthals were still stuck in brute force, face-to-face survival, too close for comfort.

The ability to throw spears and rocks from a distance would have allowed Homo sapiens to engage Neanderthals from beyond their reach, wearing them down without the need for close confrontation.

Projectile Mindset

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