I'll be starting again next week after seven weeks off after my major hip replacement. My healing is much longer than usual - it was a complex surgery since I was born with arthritis hips.
What can I expect? I have a feeling flip turns are out. Will I be able I use my fins? Do breaststroke and fly?
I plan on cutting the workouts our coach puts up in half and seeing how that goes.
Anything else I should know?
I have rehabbed 2 hip replacements. I was back in the pool after about 5 weeks (when the wound was closed and healed) but I did not start swimming right away, instead I did a lot of progressive hyrotherapy exercise/PT to rebuild the strength of my muscles around the hip and the surgical wound. I then started a progressive return to swimming over a few months. (My surgery was actually hip resurfacing - very similar to hip replacement). Please PM me if you would like to hear about my experiences in greater detail. I recommend the forums at http://www.hipsforyou.com/ and http://surfacehippy.info/ Good luck with your recovery and rehab.
MSK's advice above strikes me as excellent, in my non-professional opinion. There are too many differences regarding surgical technique, prosthesis, individual patient factors etc. to be able to generalize on rehab protocols, so you should be relying on your individual surgeon, PT etc. for advice on specifics on limitations etc. My approach was to be very persistent, regular and patient with my PT, and to be more conservative than my instincts suggested, following all the restrictions. I took a "long game" approach on the theory that the prosthesis needed plenty of time to "settle in" with good bone strength taking 6-12 months, and continuing to improve thereafter, and that the last thing I wanted was to cause a failure that would put me back into surgical revision.
I have rehabbed 2 hip replacements. I was back in the pool after about 5 weeks (when the wound was closed and healed) but I did not start swimming right away, instead I did a lot of progressive hyrotherapy exercise/PT to rebuild the strength of my muscles around the hip and the surgical wound. I then started a progressive return to swimming over a few months. (My surgery was actually hip resurfacing - very similar to hip replacement). Please PM me if you would like to hear about my experiences in greater detail. I recommend the forums at http://www.hipsforyou.com/ and http://surfacehippy.info/ Good luck with your recovery and rehab.
MSK's advice above strikes me as excellent, in my non-professional opinion. There are too many differences regarding surgical technique, prosthesis, individual patient factors etc. to be able to generalize on rehab protocols, so you should be relying on your individual surgeon, PT etc. for advice on specifics on limitations etc. My approach was to be very persistent, regular and patient with my PT, and to be more conservative than my instincts suggested, following all the restrictions. I took a "long game" approach on the theory that the prosthesis needed plenty of time to "settle in" with good bone strength taking 6-12 months, and continuing to improve thereafter, and that the last thing I wanted was to cause a failure that would put me back into surgical revision.
