This Has Always Been Something of a Stretch For Me

So I've been post surgery for a little over a month now. I'm faithfully going to my physical therapy treatments and have found how badly I've been out of shape. I'm certainly not the ideal specimen of a 52 year old male but I don't think I've been neglecting my physical health these last few years. Still, I've come to find out I've been quite physically below par. My therapist is stretching and twisting and pushing me into shapes heretofore unimaginable to me. He's Brazilian but perhaps I misheard. He is more likely Bavarian given his obvious predilection for pretzels.

I'd like to blame all this pain and difficulty recuperating to my feeble and untrained adaptation to 20 or so years of hip problems. Certainly that's only part of the reason I am now in this sorry state. My therapist is pushing me into positions I wasn't able to get into before any of my surgeries! It boils down to just one painful word: S t r e t c h i n g.

Wait a minute. I'm no slacker. I've been going to a gym between 2 to 3 times a week with the occasional vacation break for years now. I think I'm relatively physically fit. I've mostly avoided the beer belly (but not the beer). My diet is relatively healthy, filled with vegetables and lots of water, a bit high in the protein and a bit low in the fruit departments.

After my first surgery I was very good about stretching, especially the IT band. This is a strap of connective tissue, a ligament that stretches from the hip to the knee, running down the side of the upper leg. I've been very good about stretching the right side IT band (good side) and also the left side as well (bad side) ever since I was allowed to do so post surgery number one. I would 3-4 times a week, lay on my back, flop my leg over to the opposite side with the leg about 90 degrees to the long axis of my body. My hip and midsection would twist and the IT band would stretch. I looked like an old statue of a Hindu god fallen over. Same facial expressions too, no doubt. I would do this to both sides, in fact I was able to stretch more on the left leg (bad side) than the healthy right side (good side).

Now post surgery number two, this band is giving me pain and problems. I had thought that my stretching this way well ahead of surgery would protect this part of me from being affected by the surgery, or at least bounce back quickly. WRONG. Granted, that's the only stretch I really did on a regular basis. Naturally, that was apparently the one that would help me the least post surgically.

I did do my homework, too. I scheduled the surgery months before and checked online, asked my orthopedic surgeon, went to preoperative orientations and asked questions. I'd always ask what I could do physically to prepare for the surgery and make my recuperation easier/faster. It boiled down to a series of strengthening exercises, all of which I was already doing at my gym for years.

Moral of the story? Go to a physical therapist before the surgery as far in advance as possible and get him/her to tell you what to do to prepare for the surgery. Not just exercises but stretches.