On August 15th I went in to have my 20-year-old hernia repaired. I had been putting it off for so long thinking it wasn't that big a deal. I had even consulted with a surgeon about 10 years ago who told me that as long as it's not bothering me physically or emotionally, I didn't really need to get it fixed.
Well, this was the year that I felt like I wanted to be physically normal, and since I didn't have any competitions this year, I decided I could take the hit to training for recuperation. At this consultation, I met a different surgeon who advised me to keep all physical activity to walking for six weeks. Then at my follow up he'd let me know if I could resume normal activity.
I found out when I woke up after the operation that I had three hernias...a triple hernia. I had an umbilical hernia that I didn't know about that had weakened my abdominal wall causing the first hernia to form. That was a surprise.
Leading up to the operation, I was reading about hernias and learned there's something called a femoral hernia where the muscle tears over by the...guess what...the femur. This can cause destabilization of the hip joint to the point of one leg becoming longer than the other.
Now, it's been a while since I posted, so maybe no one remembers the horrible problems I've been having for about three to four years with my hip and sciatic nerve. I haven't been able to do any front-loaded work and no deep hip flexion(especially front squats, ruling out full cleans and snatches) without losing stability in the joint and feeling pain radiating all the way down my leg.
After reading about femoral hernias, I probed the muscle tear and found how far toward my joint the tear had grown and started wondering if that had actually been the source of my pain and dysfunction.
As soon as I arrived home (about three hours after I woke up in post-op) I started my walking regimen. I made it about 50 yards before I had to turn around and come back to the house. I did this a couple times per day, going a little farther every day, and over the course of the six weeks of post-surgery recovery, I worked up to two miles daily.
Now I'm four weeks into my "normal" routine where I'm working at getting "normal" again. After my six-weeks of walking, the surgeon gave me the okay to start lifting and running, so that's what I did. I started out with deadlifts and bench press and running 10 minutes at 2.8 mph. The next day I ran 15 minutes, then the next, 20 minutes.
I've worked up to 35 minutes at 3.2 mph so far, and after a few days of deadlifts and bench press, I decided to try a squat. It was shallow and painful, the hip still telling me it's no good yet. Why would it be? It's only been 10 weeks since the surgery, and it took many years to get this bad.
I settled into a somewhat daily routine of running and power clean + press. I run 4-5 times per week and lift 3-5 times per week. I started out with low weight and lifting at 80 pounds this week. Every day I do Power Clean 2x5, plus one "as many" set followed by one Power Clean plus five presses for two sets and one additional "as many" set.
There's also a little KB clean and press from time to time.
Oh, I bought my son one of those Bonobo Gym 1 contraptions, so I do a chin up or two every time I walk into the kitchen.
Time will tell if my hip will improve with the reinforcement of the muscle wall there. Today I introduced a little light strengthening of the lower abdomen (leg lifts for 20 seconds), so maybe there'll be some positive results from that.
Maybe.
It's a long road, and this is a meandering post. I'm not sure what my point is, but I thought it might be important for someone out there to read about this experience.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading.
TomB
