Hip labrum repair and FAI surgery recovery

[training_tonia]

Update:

So I ended up taking an extra day of work because of the travel weekend. Simply put, it was too much for me. I overdid it. Nothing that laying around for a day with an ice pack didn't fix, but wow. I walked too much, shopped too much, etc. Lesson learned and advice for any future surgery getters: learn how to say no to others and no to yourself.

PT yesterday went great though. My glutes are still tight as hell so the massage there helps. Still not cleared to get a regular massage though.

Exercises included leg press, wall squats and some other creative functional exercises to test stability. I passed with flying colors and PT said I am where I am supposed to be right now, which is good news.

The leg press is hard to describe because I usually don't do machines. The angle was increased remarkably for yesterday's session and I did 20 one-legged presses on each side. It was tough. I think at this point, muscles just need to keep moving to be reminded that they were once strong.

I'm off crutches pretty much. PT said my gait looked normal, but I am picking up on some postural issues with leaning my pelvis forward that I want to remain aware of and correct. Happens mostly when i get tired of walking. I start walking like my grandma when I get tired.

[training_tonia]

Thought I would announce that I got a massage today. Felt great! PT said to avoid deep tissue on that leg for a bit still, so the guy went light, but it was a great experience. It definitely loosened me up a bit. The massage guy said it wasn't that hard to loosen up my leg and that I must have had a great surgeon. Cannot speak enough good things about Dr. Omar Mei Dan in Boulder, CO. The Stedman clinic in Vail "invented" this scope procedure, but Mei Dan has perfected it. Highly recommend if you ever need this and are in range.

After the massage, I hit my own PT at home:

Wall squats, three at 40 seconds each.
Single legged squats: the most shallow pistol squats you'll ever see but hard as the dickens right now.
Box squats with an imaginary box. I think I might be almost parallel, but the range of motion is not quite there yet. No weight.
Clamshells, doc/PT said to go for 100 and I can get 42. Yikes, my poor glutes.
A lot of range of motion stretching: figure-fours laying down, some quad stretches (I bet I can start "couch stretches" this next week), and some frogs and butterflies. Ask me about these if it doesn't make sense. Sometimes I make up my own names for these things.

Basically, I am working on external/internal rotation stuff and still just getting my muscles to activate and work as they did. Surprising amount of weakness. My starting date for barbells hasn't changed. April 30--eight weeks out from surgery. I would start on week seven, but as I said before I have work obligations (a conference) that will keep my busy enough that week.

[training_tonia]

Thought I would announce that I got a massage today. Felt great! PT said to avoid deep tissue on that leg for a bit still, so the guy went light, but it was a great experience. It definitely loosened me up a bit. The massage guy said it wasn't that hard to loosen up my leg and that I must have had a great surgeon. Cannot speak enough good things about Dr. Omar Mei Dan in Boulder, CO. The Stedman clinic in Vail "invented" this scope procedure, but Mei Dan has perfected it. Highly recommend if you ever need this and are in range.

After the massage, I hit my own PT at home:

Wall squats, three at 40 seconds each.
Single legged squats: the most shallow pistol squats you'll ever see but hard as the dickens right now.
Box squats with an imaginary box. I think I might be almost parallel, but the range of motion is not quite there yet. No weight.
Clamshells, doc/PT said to go for 100 and I can get 42. Yikes, my poor glutes.
A lot of range of motion stretching: figure-fours laying down, some quad stretches (I bet I can start "couch stretches" this next week), and some frogs and butterflies. Ask me about these if it doesn't make sense. Sometimes I make up my own names for these things.

Basically, I am working on external/internal rotation stuff and still just getting my muscles to activate and work as they did. Surprising amount of weakness. My starting date for barbells hasn't changed. April 30--eight weeks out from surgery. I would start on week seven, but as I said before I have work obligations (a conference) that will keep my busy enough that week.

For the box squats, 3 sets of 10. Single leg squats two sets of ten on each leg.

[training_tonia]

Had my six-week check-in with the doc today. Saw his assistant who assessed my range of motion and they took x-rays. The x-rays looked great they said, but for some reason we got caught up in stuff and I didn't get to see them. Doc said that I was right where they expected me to be so I asked them if they had high expectations. Heh. I really wanted to get a gold star and be ahead of the curve.

Truth is, I worked on my gait in PT this week. I have to re-learn how to extend my operated leg when I walk. This is done by getting me to exaggerate my steps and make them bigger. It got me to pay attention to how I am still guarding that hip and won't let it stretch out as much as it should when I walk. The second gait exercise was to walk with frontwards and backwards with a resistance belt/stretchy rope around me. It was a great stretch and workout to do that.

All PT is not bad folks. Especially in the first six weeks, I've followed along quite religiously and the exercises progress quickly. The changeup in exercises is a bit hard to keep up with because I am so used to starting strength--doing the same thing over and over til I am super strong. Looking forward to getting back at it.

I'm doing some one-legged bridges and some weird clamshell side planks which are actually both challenging. I'm tempted to just think these exercises are just silly until I can't do them very well. I quickly get on board and do twice the number because I hate silly exercises that happen to be hard as hell.

I'm off PT next week for my conference, but I will be progressing my exercises as much as I can while I am there.

Update on general stamina: I'm improving, but cannot go a full day of walking around work, going to lunch, etc without feeling fatigued enough to have a little hitch in my step at the end of the day. Nothing helps me recover quicker than the ol' chaise route. Just taking my weight off and relaxing for 45 is great.

I tried two full, busy days in a row and was totally wiped at the end of the second. A full day? Headed to work, gave a couple of presentations, took off for PT at lunch time, grabbed some lunch after and then finished off my work day at home. Day 2: worked from home with an early start, took off for the doctors and then had to run another errand (60 minutes drive time or more total during the day) and then I had come community meetings for a couple of hours that night. Holy crap, I was tired. I took my crutches to the community meeting and completely appreciated them. I did not appreciate the folks who parked in the handicap spaces though. I have that pass still and I use it whenever I can because I like to conserve my steps. I'm not allowed to "walk for exercise" yet and to my that includes parking on the back 40. I'll use that thing until it expires.

[Tiburon]

A: Muscle weakness and muscles aren't engaging on that leg very well because they are still healing from surgery trauma. Advised to use the crutches to give those muscles a break so that they can continue healing.

Is that true?

[training_tonia]

Is that true?

I'm not sure who can give a different answer on that. I believe this answer from my PT was given so i could avoid biomechanical dysfunction and -itis stuff while I am still recovering. As far as weakness goes, my gluteus med is indeed the weakest link right now.

That said, I will start lifting on Monday and I do think bi-lateral training will be one of the best ways to get it strong. As has been the bi-lateral exercises I have been doing so far. I rarely do single-leg anything without also doing the other side if that counts.


As far as the walking goes, the advise was to use crutches when i caught myself limping. The assumption is that walking with a limp will cause damage.

Is that helpful?

[training_tonia]

I'm not sure who can give a different answer on that. I believe this answer from my PT was given so i could avoid biomechanical dysfunction and -itis stuff while I am still recovering. As far as weakness goes, my gluteus med is indeed the weakest link right now.

That said, I will start lifting on Monday and I do think bi-lateral training will be one of the best ways to get it strong. As has been the bi-lateral exercises I have been doing so far. I rarely do single-leg anything without also doing the other side if that counts.


As far as the walking goes, the advise was to use crutches when i caught myself limping. The assumption is that walking with a limp will cause damage.

Is that helpful?

by "cause damage" I mean, prolong healing. If I get so fatigued that I can't have the right form, I should back off. To quote a strength training coach or two.

[training_tonia]

Last update before I had into the gym tomorrow.

I attended a conference last week and did great. I was definitely limping a bit at the end of the day but subtly. I didn't make time to do much stretching and strengthening which is a bummer.

But I did some exercises yesterday and my one-legged sit-to-stand stuff looks solid and is almost as easy for me as it was pre-surgery. The figure-four stretches I think will be with me for a while. They aren't "hard" but a very good stretch. I'm going to ask the PT this week if she is ok with me doing more aggressive stretching.

But I can box squat with invisible boxes and am only an inch high from below parallel. I'm not sure what weight I will start out at, but I will find out tomorrow when I step into the gym! Yay!

[training_tonia]

DAY 1: !!!!

Ok, here are what my lifts were previous to surgery. We will time me on how long it takes to get back there, hopefully being able to use NLP the whole way.

About me:
48 yr old female.
148 weight, 5'8''
Squat: 148
Deadlift 145
Bench 80
OHP: 57

And here are my today stats: (cue sad noises here)
Squat: no weight but below parallel! Form looks hot!
OHP: 30 lbs
Bench: will tell you on Wednesday
Deadlift aka rack pulls for now: 45 lbs.

First off, it felt amazing to be back in the gym. Secondly, it felt fantastic to get below parallel on my no-weight box-squats:

IMG_8527.jpg

I warmed up before doing 3 sets of 5 at this depth. The wooden dowel is my squat teddy bar. It's comforting to have some semblance of a bar on my back. I'm going to ask the PT how they feel about load, but probably not try any until next week. Each set felt better than the last. No pain, just hip tightness. And retraining. I've been doing whatever squat I could for the last five weeks and these still felt uneasy at first. I'm hoping muscle memory come quickly to my aid.

I did some OHP and started out really light. Mostly because I haven't pressed anything but a keyboard or an Xbox controller button for seven weeks. We are trying to avoid soreness. No need to run out of the gate anyway.

Next were rack pulls. Felt weird to start out without a deadlift, but decided to go this route first. With the limited range of motion, I felt pretty safe with the tiny load of the empty bar. My hamstrings feel like they are learning how how to be hamstrings again. It's an odd tightness, but it got better and better after 3 sets of five. Warmup started higher than this. Again, going to ask the PT about loading these, or how they feel about deadlifts.
rackpull.jpg
And yes, I forgot my lifting shoes. It's been so long that I forgot where I hid them. I missed them terribly. As my body is adjusting to the new hip mechanics, my knees get irritated. Looking forward to having the shoes with me instead of lifting in the tennis shoes you see in the pics.

I worked in some ring rows and some ad work as well as some figure-four stretches and some "butterflies" I'll show pictures of those later. It's a seated hip flexor stretch that hurts so good.

[training_tonia]

DAY 1: !!!!

Ok, here are what my lifts were previous to surgery. We will time me on how long it takes to get back there, hopefully being able to use NLP the whole way.

About me:
48 yr old female.
148 weight, 5'8''
Squat: 148
Deadlift 145
Bench 80
OHP: 57

And here are my today stats: (cue sad noises here)
Squat: no weight but below parallel! Form looks hot!
OHP: 30 lbs
Bench: will tell you on Wednesday
Deadlift aka rack pulls for now: 45 lbs.

First off, it felt amazing to be back in the gym. Secondly, it felt fantastic to get below parallel on my no-weight box-squats:

IMG_8527.jpg

I warmed up before doing 3 sets of 5 at this depth. The wooden dowel is my squat teddy bar. It's comforting to have some semblance of a bar on my back. I'm going to ask the PT how they feel about load, but probably not try any until next week. Each set felt better than the last. No pain, just hip tightness. And retraining. I've been doing whatever squat I could for the last five weeks and these still felt uneasy at first. I'm hoping muscle memory come quickly to my aid.

I did some OHP and started out really light. Mostly because I haven't pressed anything but a keyboard or an Xbox controller button for seven weeks. We are trying to avoid soreness. No need to run out of the gate anyway.

Next were rack pulls. Felt weird to start out without a deadlift, but decided to go this route first. With the limited range of motion, I felt pretty safe with the tiny load of the empty bar. My hamstrings feel like they are learning how how to be hamstrings again. It's an odd tightness, but it got better and better after 3 sets of five. Warmup started higher than this. Again, going to ask the PT about loading these, or how they feel about deadlifts.
rackpull.jpg
And yes, I forgot my lifting shoes. It's been so long that I forgot where I hid them. I missed them terribly. As my body is adjusting to the new hip mechanics, my knees get irritated. Looking forward to having the shoes with me instead of lifting in the tennis shoes you see in the pics.

I worked in some ring rows and some ad work as well as some figure-four stretches and some "butterflies" I'll show pictures of those later. It's a seated hip flexor stretch that hurts so good.

OHP was started at 30 lbs.