Your initial crutch training schedule

You're in your running shoes, poised and ready for your first outside workout on crutches. Over the next few weeks and more your hip will respond well to walks of increasing duration.

When your six week checkup with the specialist rolls around aim to be walking up to one and a half kilometers at a time. That should be enough to trigger the green light for trekking poles.

Workouts on crutches

The wind on your face

Once you are on your crutches and mobile you’ll quickly feel strong enough to head outside. If the weather’s not too extreme grab those crutches and go for it - this is the start of your ‘running’ recuperation proper.

Can I start running yet?

Don't even think about it

You've only just left the hospital! OK think about it just don't do it yet. Even if you have the finest surgeon in the world working on your hip replacement, the most experienced anesthetist in the operating room, the best nurses monitoring your every symptom after surgery, there’s one member of the team that can really stuff things up. You.

Mobile again

Taking your hip for a spin

Not long after surgery, you’ll be able to try out your brand new hip. Mark your first short walk around the hospital room in your running diary. It won’t be long before you are tackling a really long walk - all the way to the hospital hallway!

Standing exercises

A standing start

You should be able to stand with assistance shortly after surgery. I say “with assistance” because you could feel a bit dizzy and you don’t want to fall on your hip. Here are some exercises the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons recommends once you can stand up.

Exercises immediately after surgery

If your Doc says its OK then go for it

Lying in bed immediately after your hip replacement you'll feel absolutely whacked. However you may want to do something rather than just lie there and believe it or not you might be able to start your running rehab right away. The American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons recommends beginning the following exercises in the recovery room, right after surgery.

Major surgery is not a bothersome injury

Closing the layers

It might help you relax and be patient if you understand a bit of the process the surgeon has gone through to close you up once your new hip is in place. Surgeons call it 'closing in layers' - picture this:

1. Your first 4 layers are closed with heavy-duty dis-solvable stitches, these are:
   
   1. the hip joint capsule
   2. the deep layers of muscles
   3. the shallower muscle sheets
   4. the strong shell over the muscles called the tensor fascia lata
2. Then the surgeon picks up thinner dissolvable stitches to close:
   1. your fat layer
   2. a thin layer between the fat and the skin called the subcuticular
3. Then comes the staple gun to finish up or you might get away with steristrips to close your skin.

So yes, there is a lot of healing going on in the first months and there are no short cuts (if you’ll excuse the expression).

GETTING ON WITH IT

Resting when you’re tired is important but you won’t be tired all the time and there are exercises you can do immediately after surgery that will help. We'll look at some of these in the next post.

How long before I can run after hip surgery?

That depends what you mean by 'run'

Depending on the level of running you were doing before hip problems you may have to re-assess what running is and what will now be possible. First though, heal. The length of your running rehab after your hip replacement depends a lot on how you progress in the first few months.