From a training point of view, I find myself in the worst place I have ever been in. I’ve trained consistently for more than 30 years and of course over that time I’ve had multiple set-backs and challenges to overcome – that’s just life.
I had hip replacement surgery for the second time 7 days ago – first one was 6 years ago – and I’m long past the stage of easy recovery from injuries.
So here I am. Haven’t trained at all for more than two months, which is possibly the longest break of my life. And the year before that was makeshift training at home with limited equipment due to gyms being closed. And now I’m recovering from a major surgery (recovery which required lots of comfort food and booze!) and I’m older than I’ve ever been.
Taken all together, right now it looks like a very long, hard road back.
But I am reminding myself: you only ever have to get up the same amount of times that you get knocked down. So I am getting up again, one more time. I’m setting myself very simple goals, and I’m going to focus on the process first and then the outputs.
Process:
Get out of bed every morning – if it’s a training day, train.
And it most probably will be. But long hard roads are travelled as any other road - one step (even if they are frustratingly small) at the time - while trying to enjoy the process and not worry too much about where it leads.
Seems you have made yourself a set of realistic goals and are approaching this quite sensibly - the rest is “just” doing the work each day.
11 days post-op.
28 minutes’ walk - same distance, getting quicker. Still walking with crutches but only for balance-safety, not putting any weight on them at all.
Just stopped in. As a guy with many replacement parts (NAPA, better than the original) can’t give you any great insightful advice except keep moving. It’s when you stop the parts tighten up. Since it’s the “other” hip this ain’t your first rodeo so you know what to do. If you can get in some water work. Walking in a pool is great for overall resistance.
22 days post-op.
Did some light bench press and a few lat pulldowns. For legs, walked over and looked at the squat rack - twice. This is a great bro-split!
More standing overhead press and direct arm work. Still using light weights and training upper body only, but starting to feel so good about this.
What catches a lot of people out when recovering from surgery, is that the surgery itself isn’t the low point. In the weeks after, as you lie around and recuperate, your muscles atrophy and your physical condition feels worse instead of better.
So what’s happening here, even with little baby gym sessions, is the direction of travel has been reversed. Now I feel like I am getting better every day instead of worse.
The sun’s shining, the sky is blue, my arms are shaking - it’s hard not to be optimistic today!
Back on the Peloton today. Did a 20 minute beginner’s class and took it really easy. Imagine my astonishment when I looked at the Leaderboard: 45,000 people have done that class, and I was in the top half for total output, with a measly 75KJ!
That blows my mind - half of the people who’ve ever done that class managed to get less out of it than a man in his fifties in his first cardio (or leg for that matter) session for five weeks??
Wtaf are people doing?
