My Experiment with Peptides (BPC-157) for Shoulder Recovery (Confounding Variables) | Ep 255
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If you've experimented with supplements or recovery protocols and struggled to determine what's actually working versus what's just wishful thinking...
Learn how the engineering concept of Confounding Variables reveals why most self-experiments fail to give clear answers – and how to design better ones.
Using my real experience with BPC-157 for shoulder recovery as a case study, discover why changing multiple factors at once creates a "messy dataset" that can mask or amplify results.
Whether you're evaluating a supplement, modifying your training, or testing any health intervention, understanding this framework will transform how you approach self-experimentation.
Main Takeaways:
Why controlling variables matters for supplement evaluation
How diet changes can mask or amplify recovery results
The hidden benefit of "messy" real-world experiments
A systematic approach to learning from imperfect data
Episodes Mentioned:
Testosterone, Hormone Therapy, and Peptides for Health and Longevity with Dr. Rand McClain
Peptides, Hormone Therapy, Medical Aesthetics, and Personalized Wellness with Kristin Gemme
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The Truth About My Experiment with BPC-157 Peptides
If you’ve ever tried a supplement or recovery protocol and struggled to figure out if it was actually working, you’re not alone. In this blog post, I’m breaking down my personal experiment with BPC-157, a synthetic peptide often touted for its potential to accelerate healing in muscles, tendons, and ligaments. More importantly, I’ll reveal the lessons I learned about confounding variables—those pesky factors that make it almost impossible to pinpoint what’s driving your results.
Whether you're testing a new supplement, tweaking your nutrition, or experimenting with training, understanding these variables is the key to making better decisions for your health and fitness.
What is BPC-157?
BPC-157 is a synthetic peptide derived from a naturally occurring protein in gastric juices. Research suggests it may accelerate tissue repair by promoting blood vessel formation and collagen production, while also reducing inflammation and oxidative stress.
Most of the evidence comes from animal studies, and while anecdotal reports among humans are promising, rigorous human trials are limited. This leaves plenty of room for experimentation—but also a lot of room for error.
My BPC-157 Protocol
After recovering from rotator cuff surgery in 2023, I started experiencing persistent inflammation in my left shoulder. Cortisone shots and progressive rehab helped me regain strength and mobility, but I wanted to optimize recovery further. Enter BPC-157.
Here’s the protocol I followed:
Dosage: 500 micrograms per day (five days a week for six weeks).
Administration: Injected subcutaneously into fatty tissue near the triceps.
Goal: Assess improvements in shoulder pain, mobility, and strength while tracking progress systematically.
The Problem with Confounding Variables
Here’s where things got tricky. At the same time I began the BPC-157 protocol, I made other significant changes:
Nutrition: Transitioned from a fat loss phase to a bulking phase.
Training: Shifted from a bodybuilding-style program to a more strength-focused program.
These changes introduced multiple variables into the equation. Was my shoulder feeling better because of the peptides, the increased caloric intake, or the adjusted training style? Maybe all of the above?
This is what scientists call a multivariate problem. Multiple changes interacting with each other make it nearly impossible to isolate a single cause.
Lessons from My Experiment
If you’re experimenting with protocols or supplements, here are a few takeaways to help you avoid messy data:
1. Document Everything
Track as many variables as possible, even those that seem unrelated. Sleep, stress, diet, training volume, and recovery tools all interact with each other and can skew results.
2. Start with a Baseline
Before introducing any new protocol, establish a baseline for your nutrition, training, and recovery habits. The fewer changes you make simultaneously, the clearer your data will be.
3. Compare to Past Experiences
Reflect on similar situations. For example, how did recovery progress during a previous bulk or training phase without the supplement in question?
4. Acknowledge Real-World Complexity
Perfect control is impossible in a real-life setting. Instead of striving for clean data, focus on building an environment that supports your goals holistically.
Did BPC-157 Work for Me?
Here’s the truth: I’m not 100% sure.
Yes, my shoulder feels stronger, less painful, and more mobile. But I also introduced better nutrition, smarter training, and improved recovery habits at the same time. These confounding variables make it difficult to credit the peptide exclusively.
Still, the experience was valuable. It reinforced the importance of controlling variables and tracking progress carefully. Next time, I plan to test BPC-157 on my hip, where other recovery efforts have been stable over the years.
The Takeaway
Recovery and healing don’t happen in isolation. Our bodies are influenced by the totality of our environment—nutrition, training, stress, and beyond. While confounding variables complicate experiments, they also reflect the reality of human life.
Rather than chasing perfection, focus on creating an environment conducive to your goals. Measure what you can, tweak as needed, and embrace the messiness of real life.
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Transcript
Philip Pape: 0:01
If you're curious about BPC-157 or any other peptides or supplements for injury recovery and you want the truth about what I learned using it for my shoulder, but, more importantly, if you've ever tried self-experimentation and struggled to figure out whether something is actually working or not, this episode is for you. I'm breaking down my real experiment using BPC-157 peptides for my shoulder what went right, what went wrong and the crucial lesson about confounding variables that will change how you evaluate any protocol or supplement. Welcome to Wits and Weights, the show that blends evidence and engineering to help you build smart, efficient systems to achieve your dream physique. I'm your host, philip Pape, and today I'm talking about my personal experience with BPC-157. This is a peptide, and I did this for my left shoulder, where I had rotator cuff surgery last year, and I'm going to go through that process, but with an important twist. Instead of just telling you whether it worked or not, we're going to use this as a case study in confounding variables, those pesky factors that make it nearly impossible to determine what's actually causing our results. It nearly impossible to determine what's actually causing our results Because when I tried BPC-157, I made some classic mistakes that created a messy data set. Understanding these mistakes will help you avoid them in your own experiments, whether with supplements, training protocols or changes to your nutrition.
Philip Pape: 1:40
And I do want to say that none of what I share today constitutes any sort of advice, medical or otherwise, for you. It is simply for educational purposes. And before we get into it, I do want to mention something a little bit new that I haven't talked about much lately, and that is a brand new podcast we launched called Nutrition Science Daily. This is a daily weekday morning five-minute podcast. I'm trying to get every single episode under five minutes. Some come in at five and a half or six, and this is an examination of a recent study, finding news article or happening in the world of nutrition, how to analyze it and how to apply it to your life in a nuanced, evidence-based way. So that's called Nutrition Science Daily, links in the show notes. I highly encourage you to check it out. If you like it, follow it and share, but just give it a shot and see if you like it.
Philip Pape: 2:28
Let's talk about my experiment with peptides, and I want to first explain what the heck these are. What is BPC-157? Because I've talked about peptides a couple times on the show, once long ago with Dr Rand M, another time with Christian Gem. I may have talked about it a few other times and you can go check those out, but peptides are well. Bpc-157, specifically, is a synthetic peptide which is derived from a naturally occurring protein found in gastric juices. Research shows it can accelerate healing in muscles, tendons and ligaments by promoting blood vessel formation and collagen production. Studies, mostly in animals so that is a big caveat primarily in animals demonstrate it may have the potential to reduce inflammation and oxidative stress, particularly in tissue repair, which would then help with accelerating that tissue repair.
Philip Pape: 3:22
And the reason I decided to try these out is, first of all, I'm working with a qualified professional. Her name is Kristin Gemme here in Avon. She was on the show and she helped guide me through this process. I had rotator cuff surgery in 2023. So this was last year, as I'm recording this episode and I recovered through that pretty nicely over about six to 12 months, got back into lifting, things started to feel well and then I got some bursitis, some really strong painful inflammation that just would not go away. I worked through various protocols to get that down naturally and then I decided to have a cortisone shot to just massively reduce the inflammation. It worked wonders to allow me to slowly build back in, reintroduce load, get back to shoulder pressing all the things that I love to do in the gym in a very reasonable, appropriate way. And now I'm training pretty hard and it's feeling good.
Philip Pape: 4:13
However, throughout that process I thought is there anything else I can do to support this? And I had heard about peptides several times. I talked to a former coach of mine who said you know, I've used it. This was him talking. I've used it for my shoulder, others have used it for their knees, for their hips, used it after surgery, and there's all these anecdotal stories of people having faster recovery. And I looked into it I talked to Kristen and I talked to some other professionals. It seems to be the very not just efficacious for a lot of people, but safe as well, and so I considered taking it because it is a fairly natural product, although it is in its infancy with regards to the research.
Philip Pape: 4:52
And the protocol is very simple. You inject I think it's 500 micrograms Don't quote me, I don't have my notes here Uh, basically daily. For me, I did it five out of seven days for six weeks, so it's 30 doses. With a very tiny syringe, you put it into fatty tissue. Um, I did it five out of seven days for six weeks, so it's 30 doses. With a very tiny syringe you put it into fatty tissue, I did it into the fat near my triceps and so you hardly feel it. You probably need someone to help with that. And the recommendation was alternate my shoulders for each dose. If you were to put it in your hip or buttocks or stomach or wherever again, you could do it in the same spot every day. You can alternate. It's systemic, but it also is supposed to be local as well. And that's it. And the idea there was that I would track how I feel, how I perform, my mobility, my range of motion as I went forward. And I did but hold that thought, because now we're going to talk about the sticky situation you can get yourself in if you don't do it right.
Philip Pape: 5:48
Let's talk about controlled versus confounding variables. Now, this is a fundamental concept when you're designing any experiment, and what we do here on Wits and Weights and in my coaching practice, is we're always experimenting on ourselves. We start from a known base of knowledge. We start from best practices and our best guess. Like, we know how much protein we should be eating, but we don't know if it should be a little bit higher, a little lower for you. We know you should be training in a certain way generally, but we don't know if you need more or less volume, more or less intensity and more or fewer days per week. So we figure those out later on, but we start with a baseline and we identify these variables.
Philip Pape: 6:24
A controlled variable is something that we intentionally keep constant or we manipulate in a very specific way to understand its effects. So think about scientific studies where researchers control factors like diet, exercise and sleep and they want to isolate the impact of a supplement. So they are controlling these things. They are either manipulating them to keep them steady or they are not touching them, if you will, if they're expected to remain stable. So those are control variables.
Philip Pape: 6:54
Confounding variables are the wild cards. These are the factors that can influence our results but are not part of what we're trying to test, and they can mask or they can amplify the true effect of our intervention. And when it comes to health fitness, common confounding variables are all over the place, because we're human beings, we live messy lives, our stress levels change, our sleep quality changes, we have seasonal variations in our activity. We have life events that come along that affect everything recovery, everything else. We are constantly changing our supplements and medications, we're constantly modifying our training program and our intensity, and the list goes on and on. And the challenge of biological systems, especially our bodies, is that true control, variables, or I should say variable control is nearly impossible. We just have to acknowledge that Everything interacts with everything else. Hormones affect sleep, which affects recovery, which affects performance, which affects hormones. You get the idea. There's sometimes chicken and egg effects that go both directions.
Philip Pape: 7:58
So when I apply this specifically to my situation, the timeline was such that, as I was starting the BPC-157 protocol, I just happened to be changing a few other very big variables at the same time. Now, those were more under my control, I will admit, and this is where I made the mistake. There are lots of things that happen to us, but there are things that we control, such as our diet. Well, at the time I was starting this, I also decided to come out of my fat loss phase into maintenance and then into a bulking phase. Now, part of that was intentional, so that I could get more out of the recovery, knowing that I was taking peptides, but it still introduced an extra major change to a variable that was no longer in control, although it became controlled in a new sense, in that now I was in a consistent bulk, but it was a change. Also, I switched from a bodybuilding style program to a more strength building style program, knowing again that I would be in a recovery phase, that I would also have more food coming in, and I'm like, well, heck, yeah, now I want to improve my strength base and go after PRs again. I've been wanting to do that ever since before my surgery. So now I'm in a more volume heavy training program at the same time, and all these things are changing while I'm taking the protocol. So now the question is how the heck do I know that if my shoulder starts feeling better or has better mobility, it's because of the peptides? And how do I avoid the placebo effect here as well, where I start saying, oh, I'm feeling better, it's because of the peptides, because I want them to be.
Philip Pape: 9:31
And so when we modify several factors at once like this, we create what scientists call a multivariate problem. Right, each change introduces its own effects and potentially interacts with other changes in ways that we just cannot predict. For example, in my case, increasing calories improves recovery and provides more resources for tissue repair. I wanted that to support the peptides, but it also means I don't know if it's the peptides that's really doing the job. Modifying my training reduces stress on injured areas, even though I might be training more intensely and building strength. So it's like, eh, again, am I hitting myself harder and now the peptides are helping me feel better to counteract that, or I'm actually supporting that by reducing stress because I am getting stronger? You see what I mean. Peptides themselves, of course, might accelerate the healing processes. That's really the ultimate thing I'm trying to figure out. Better nutrition might optimize hormones that affect all of this, and then my training volume could affect my recovery time. Now, to be honest, I increased my volume, so I technically have less potential recovery, but that's a whole separate topic because of the interaction between stress and fatigue and all that.
Philip Pape: 10:45
So this is where understanding confounding variables becomes absolutely critical. So you don't make assumptions and don't make anecdotal claims, because when multiple factors change simultaneously, we have to have a more systematic approach, and we're all about systems, we're all about analysis and there are still ways that you can kind of tease out the data. So the first thing is to document everything you care about, even things that you might not think you should care about and seem unrelated but could be affected. So you want to care about those as well, all right. So documenting everything, looking for patterns in the timing between changes and improvements. So, for example, if you made a change and then something improved, look at everything that changed and were they all overlapping, in which case it's kind of hard to figure out what it is, or is there a distinct association, time-wise, between something changing and something improving?
Philip Pape: 11:39
Another thing is to compare to similar situations in the past. So, for my example, I've bulked in the past and I've done strength programs in the past and I know how my shoulder has felt. So if my shoulder actually feels a lot better this time under those same conditions, that could be a clue that, oh yes, it might be the peptides, and then consider the biological mechanisms going on and how everything might interact again. So you don't make any assumptions. So what did I actually observe? You're like, okay, get to the point. What did you feel? Well, I'm not really sure. I will say that my shoulder is feeling stronger, it hurts less and it cracks less, like there was a lot of cracking going on, but I had also had the cortisone shot. I had recovered from that. I had been training and stretching, working on mobility all of that as well. So is it the peptides? I've been able to progress my bench press and my overhead press, which is phenomenal. I really missed doing those. But at the same time, I'm using smarter approaches and tools, like I use a slingshot for my standard bench, I use spotto presses which stop an inch above my chest, I support my overhead pressing, with days where I do seated overhead pressing, all of which can be supporting and improving the strength of my shoulder, independent of the peptides. And so at the end of the day, you're going to get a disappointing answer, but I'm not really sure Now.
Philip Pape: 13:04
I've had, I've heard of people who went through recovery from surgery, took the peptides and the recovery was super fast. The question is, would it have been slower or faster without them? Like, would it have been slower without them or were they motivated Cause they're on the peptides, thinking this is going to recover faster and they push themselves more in a good way? Right? We just? It's just so hard to say because of this idea of confounding variables. So if I did this next time, and I am going to do this next time, but I'm going to do it for my hip. So I've had a torn labrum in my right hip for quite a few years.
Philip Pape: 13:35
Don't know what caused it. It causes a little bit of stiffness. Sometimes in the morning it causes some clicking and it's just a little bit annoying. I do find that if I squat regularly and if I walk regularly, the pain goes away, which is another signal to always be moving and using your body. It tends to be better for your health and your joints than not doing that. When I sit around a lot, that's when it hurts. But I'm going to use peptides there because that part of my body seems to change not a lick. No matter what I do Like, no matter what I'm eating, no matter what I'm sleeping, no matter what, it's been super, super stable, no matter what Like, all these other things can change and my hip will still be a little bit problematic.
Philip Pape: 14:15
So my reasoning, of course, is if I take the peptides and all these other things in my life are more or less as they've been and all of a sudden that starts to improve, ah, that might be an indicator that these things work. And if everything stays the same, I'll be like, okay, I tried the peptides and, honestly, for me they didn't have a big deal, like I'm getting much more out of just hitting the gym hard, working out, eating right, all those fun things A lot of what I tell my clients to do. I say, look, don't focus so much on these hacks, these supplements, these one percenters. Just focus on the big things and then, once you get there, you can focus on optimization and experimentation with the little things. So the fascinating thing about all of this, about this confounding variable thing, is, while they make clean data pretty much impossible, as a human, they actually mirror real life accurately.
Philip Pape: 15:05
Right, because in the real world, healing and recovery don't happen in isolation. Right, our bodies respond to the totality of our environment, not just single interventions. So we need to care about all of it and we need to just not make excuses and also not rely on one solution or another and just go after it. I, for one, am rather entertained by the messiness of life, and I talk often about how that messiness is what allows us to create resilience around it knowing that it's messy, like knowing that we can't be perfect and knowing that things are going to happen all the it, knowing that it's messy, like knowing that we can't be perfect and knowing that things are gonna happen all the time. It's liberating. It allows you to then set up your system, to assume that that's the case and to set up your environment rather than any single intervention.
Philip Pape: 15:51
And don't get hung up and don't overthink is this the best training program? Is this the best diet? Just think about your environment as a whole and start to nudge things in the direction you think. Work for you, Track it, measure it, see how you feel, see how you perform, and you'll get there. And if we understand this, then we understand self-experimentation. And now, instead of seeking perfect isolation, we focus on creating the environment conducive to our goals, while we still carefully document the things that change. We document our results, we track, we measure, of course, and carefully document the things that change. We document our results, we track, we measure, of course, and overall, we have a more nuanced approach. It's not going to give you clear-cut answers it never will but it's going to lead to better real-world outcomes and that's what matters.
Philip Pape: 16:27
All right, if you want to learn more about the little corners and the nooks and crannies of nutrition science, follow my new podcast, nutrition Science Daily. It's wherever you get your podcasts. Check it out. It's five minutes every weekday morning by 6 am Eastern. It's only in the weekdays right now so you can catch up on the weekends if you miss a few during the week and you might love some. You might not Check it out. Follow and submit a five-star rating and review if you enjoy it, or reach out to me on Instagram at witsandweights five-star rating and review if you enjoy it, or reach out to me on Instagram at witsandweights. And until next time, keep using those wits, keep lifting those weights and remember sometimes the best data comes from understanding why your experiment was not perfect. I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits and Weights Podcast.
