Hip Rehab Before & After Surgery

Pre-Operative Advice: In most cases it’s beneficial to strengthen and improve flexibility so that you can have reduced pain levels and improved recovery post-operatively. You may well find this helps you avoid surgery but if your condition is too far gone you may still require surgery.

Worse case scenario, the strengthening does not make a difference but this seemed to be a rare outcome and that strengthening is something that is definitely worth doing. Your brain has a good understanding of where everything is in the body, but when you have a procedure it may take time for your body to re-learn and re-orientate itself. You need to get used to your new normal. Having extra strength can help with this.

Post-Operative Advice Directions from your surgeon / physio. They will indicate how well it went and should give you an action plan as to when to get back to walking and when you expect to be back to normality. Calf pumping exercises and running your foot along the bed with you on your back bringing it closer to the bottom and back again can help while you’re not weight bearing. Once you can do this comfortably, kickbacks can also help as this will challenge with added resistance. You can use an exercise band with a loop on your ankle.

The questions we answered today were:

I really need to gain gluteal strength as I have tendinopathy and trochanteric bursitis Phase 2 of the Back In Shape will be helpful for building strength so definitely try this, it may be a slower road to recovery but do persist.

Is there anything you can do to prevent hip problems from occurring later in life? Be active and it also works hand in hand with your back too – have good flexibility. We spend all day sitting down so getting up and moving around will be helpful.

Is there a risk of too much rest post surgery? Yes, definitely and this is often where patients go wrong as you need to progress exercises at the right pace to see results.

When coming off crutches is it better to stop using both at the same time or go down to using just the 1 before going without them? You should get some more specific guidance for you. It depends on what you’re doing on a daily basis. It can be a good physical cue for people to give you more of a wide-berth as well.