It was another busy week and I just reached 14 weeks post op for my FAI/Labrum repair on my right hip. I have really focused on slow steady progress and the patience is really starting to pay off at this stage of my recovery. The fact that I went into surgery in peak physical condition gave me a leg up, and my underlying hypermobility also meant that I did not have to fight for range of motion at early stages of my recovery and instead focused on stability and managing early inflammation.
Here are the Dailies!
Saturday
I taught our first 8:30 morning ladies’ class and it went quite well! We reviewed the techniques that were taught at the seminar the previous weekend and then the class piggybacked into our 9:30 open mat training session. One of my blue belt teammates asked if I would be willing to do a light warm up round with him and I decided to just go for it since I know he is a good, controlled training partner who would stop and freeze if I told him to. I felt my coach giving me side eye the entire time, but nothing felt off or uncomfortable and I felt like I could move pretty normally – although I did of course avoid any movements of my leg across my midline and my usual guard game and only did the one light round. I felt some stiffness in my hip flexor after cooling off, so I made sure to stretch well and found that the red/infrared light therapy tool that I got the previous week really does seem to help with relaxing the area so it is now part of my evening wind down routine.
Sunday
Total rest day! I had no pain from my flow round the previous day but did do more stretching focused on the hip flexors. Jiu Jitsu moves focus on a lot of core contraction motion which is something that I need to watch to make sure doesn’t end up turning into any chronic inflammation complication after this surgery – not when I’m this close to feeling myself again!
I have been using the red/infrared every evening on my hip at various angles. Additionally I have found it to help give me some immediate relief from inflammation in my elbow. My elbow has been a bit unstable at the radial/ulnar joint – not from any sort of training injury, it’s related to my systemic hypermobility issues. The problem is that when I went through my kinesiology nerd out phase I apparently glossed over elbow and as such don’t seem to really be able to figure out how to stabilize the area myself into working order. I may need to check in with the Dr for some assistance once I get my hip cooled off a bit. All my joints are wonky so I don’t expect perfection ever, but I’m usually able to get balanced out to a form of homeostasis once I figure out some method of adaption.
Monday
Physical therapy clinic day! My routine didn’t change much from the previous week although my single leg press weight was increased again, and hip flexor stretches were added. I also learned that the hip flexor strength exercise I tried to describe last week has a name in their system – they call them “hip airplanes”.
I reported about doing my light round on Saturday, and since I had no pain the day after my PT said she wants me to keep pushing to do more. As long as there is no pain in my hip during activity, and I can get out of bed the next day without wincing from hip pain, she said I’m doing okay. I’m barely sore just in my muscles as of right now and definitely no hip joint pain (we just don’t talk about other joints – hypermobility is super fun)
This was my last physical therapy session covered by my insurance plan. Starting next week, I get to pay out of pocket but thankfully I budgeted ahead for it!
Monday night in class I was able to participate in all the drills including learning a new grip setup for a drop seoi nage, and working chokes from side control top position. I then decided to do a couple of the live positional escape rounds before sitting out the 5-minute full rounds. “Doing more” like my PT said and all.
Tuesday
More drills in class that morning, and I once again did the positional escapes and skipping out on the 5 minute rounds. I requested an updated app PT routine on Monday but that had not gone through yet so I just did my usual adapted session with my pistol squats, elevated heel squats, hip airplanes, etc. during evening comp class. We had a new lady come in to try out the late evening class after that so I stayed late to help out a bit afterwards – I fit in a few extra movement reps as well.
Wednesday
I taught no gi ladies’ class this evening at 5:30 – we went over my favorite side control top style of “kill position” and then one of the ladies really wanted to roll quite badly. I figured “why not?” expecting a chill round and she came at me like a bat out of hell – it was super fun! She would have dialed it back if I had asked her to, but we were having fun and I didn’t feel any discomfort or danger, so we kept at for probably about 10ish minutes.
I was intending to stay for the gi class after the no gi class, but I hadn’t been planning to roll like THAT. Since it was something new, I opted to go home, stretch out, and rest to make sure I didn’t let the adrenaline and friskiness overload my hip.
Thursday – Joining Comp Class
Woke up Thursday morning feeling just fine after rolling the previous evening, no soreness and wasn’t even feeling any flexor tightness. I opted to press my luck a little bit further and in class that morning I drilled and then sparred rounds (with the same person from Wednesday evening class) for about 15 minutes. I avoided playing my usual guard game that would put extra work on my hip flexors, but it was still full live sparring rounds, just avoiding certain movements and positions.
Coach saw me sparring and moving safely and conceded to let me attempt to participate in our Thursday evening competition class. I had proven last Friday that I could safely do all but one of the usual movement drills and could substitute in a different move for that one. I have enough body control and experience to be able to protect myself, and there were enough skilled people in class that were not preparing for events that I could partner with for safe training. Basically, the stars were aligned.
Our competition class has two parts. The first half is usually high intensity partner drills: think of it as Jiu Jitsu circuit training. The second half is live matches, usually starting with 1-minute positional escapes and then progressing to full length rounds from standing. The whole session lasts an hour. No breaks are allowed for water, and if someone is moving too slowly the entire class gets to do pushups. In this class you only sit out if you have an injury or some other medical consideration that coach is aware of. We currently run it twice a week.
That all said, I let my training partners know to avoid forcing my leg across my midline aggressively, but other than that told them I’m game. We just agreed that I would tap if at any point I felt myself in an awkward or uncomfortable position for my hip – then I could reset in a more secure spot and continue. I never ended up in a bad feeling position during the entire class (hip wise that is!)
Friday – The Aftermath/14 week mark
Bringing us to today, I woke up this morning feeling just fine even after the training of the previous day! I’m officially at the 14 week post-op mark now and feeling more and more like myself since I’m getting more involved with my Jiu Jitsu training!
What I am watching for is the day after slight tightness in my hip flexors/deep abdominal muscles on my operative side. This seems to creep up every time I amp up my activity/intensity levels, but as long as I respect it and do proper stretching and recovery exercises, the same level of movement is leading to less tightness the next time I do the activity. With this pattern, I’m slowly building the endurance back up without causing that nasty hip flexor tendonitis complication that I’ve read about.
I doubt I could trust a less experienced version of myself to be able to move around safely enough on the mats to be able to do as much as I am doing right now. Thanks to a combination of super amazing teammates who have my back, and over a decade of training experience (body awareness!) I was able to feel pretty comfortable training this past week at a moderate level. I adapted my movements and avoided positions that could possibly compromise my hip (no real aggressive guard play for me for a bit!), and it is feeling great.
I did take some video of the more aggressive matches in our competition class to show my physical therapist for the next time she tells me to “do more”. The ones where folks look like they are actively trying to fight for that last point with one minute to go – you know, those kinds of rounds. That way she can know how far “do more” can scale up for me.
Fun bonus note to close with: my father is currently in Australia – he will be racing this weekend at the Ironman/World Multisport 70.3 Triathlon representing Team USA. He worked really hard to qualify for this spot and took the trip out along with my mother. I’m looking forward to his race report and will be following his progress on the race tracker app!
After the race they are spending some time visiting around various spots in Australia as they have never been before (neither have I either, it’s on my list!) I’m really excited for them to have this trip together!
Monday started off with warming up on the stationary bike for the first time which made me feel pretty awesome! Then back in the main room my PT told me she was going to push my range of motion, which made me nervous because I had flashbacks to painful months of attempting to push flexion back into my knee post op (it healed stiff by surgeon’s design). Thankfully since this procedure didn’t require ligament immobilization/support for an extended period of time, my range of motion hasn’t suffered too badly. 
Up until this point I had been sticking to the post-op hip movement restrictions since I hadn’t been told otherwise, other than the end of last week when I was told I could start bending past 90 degrees if comfortable. So, she sat me down at the end of our session and clarified for me that those post op restrictions are pretty much lifted and now I’m at the phase where movements are allowed, provided that they are controlled, not excessively uncomfortable, and no impact. Still no aggressive isolated hip flexor engagement, single foot per stairs on ascent/descent, etc. Thursday we did start adding some shallow straight leg lifts to start strengthening my hip flexors again, and also added a band around my ankles for my standing hip extension/flexion/abduction reps.
I’m a bit slow to post this update (I usually post it on a Friday but today is Sunday), but I wanted to wait and add on my Saturday adventure before posting. A friend came to visit and I was able to (slowly) walk all over our local farmers market. I brought my cane of course and it was exhausting, but I did it and had no pain – waking up this morning feeling just fine.
Coach's Killer 