And just got notice from the group that we're starting our twice per week games; I was also put on notice that they had cut me slack the last couple of years, but no more. It's time (right 1 year, 10 months - left 1 year 6 months) to test the two hips out doing the Ronaldo shuffle ;D .
I'll probably play my usual forward and be a vulture, or maybe central defense (although the cutting is extreme on defense), to ease into the games (right). I've been doing the treadmill, weights, lots of stretching and strengthening of the side (cutting) muscles. I've also dropped about 30 pounds since the surgery, so the stress will be lower. Plan on continuing that, but since my measured 0 body fat mass is 200 lbs, can't say I'll ever be a complete lightweight.
A little scared but a whole lot excited. Just like anything good in life.
Good for you Hern! Enjoy your rewards!
Bruce
Yea Hern! I would love to play a pickup soccer game again. But I played keeper in high school. I played all over the field in intramurals and an adult league. But I have tendancy to drop back rather than push forward.
Let us know how it goes.
Dan
Thanks guys, most of these players are 20-30 years younger, so I figure they can do most of the running. 8)
Hi, I am 54 years old. I am from where the futebol (soccer) is not a game, it is a passion! The country that participated in all world cup! Five times world champion! It is easy to answer..
But lets go to HIP-HR.
I had a HR surgery in my left hip by Dr. De Smet in May 2010. I come back to play futebol six months later, but I confesse that it was not like before. There is some pain after 40 or 50 min. Everything is all right wiht my x-r. By the way, I keep doing a lot of PT by myself.
What is important now is to stay among my old friends playing in a smooth way and after drink a beer and eat a delicious barbecue (not too much!).
Good luck for HR athlets!
I agree roberto... I play with a several of your compatriots, folks from Europe and more than a few freshly graduated college players.
I'll be putting in full games, so I expect some pain at the later stages. Hopefully the weights, martial arts kicks and running I've been doing will help, but I'm also looking at this as therapy, for my hips to strengthen the stabilizing muscles more, and for my mind in that I can get back to something I love.
You were about 3 months ahead of me for my first one (8-24-2010), and about 6 months ahead on my second, so it's good to know you can do a full game without a lot of pain. Did you find any particular moves or kicks harder on you?
It is very cool to be able to share all of that with old friends, thanks for checking in, it does ease my mind a bit about it.
Finally was able to get out on the field. Felt strange at first, especially the sprints. It took a bit to get going, but a full hour's game, running the field, cutting, even some pivot and kick. All felt smooth and fine.
No soreness at all on the hips, muscle soreness, but that's three years layoff talking. I even did some defense on a couple of breakaways, with the quick cuts. Amazing to me that I kept up and blocked a couple. My working out, weight loss, etc. paid off, not eating air at the end.
Sweeeet..
Congrats Hern! Doesn't feel great? I know that I marvel every time I run or even walk without pain. They can't wipe this smile off my face.
Dan
Awesome to read Hern. So glad you've got out there doing what you love, you deserve it mate. Keep up the great work!
Thanks guys - day after, slightly stiff back and calf muscles, but no hip soreness at all.
Can't help but beam with good feelings, since I really did not hold back much. I did notice a bit of weakness in sideways movements, and was slower in the initial push from walking to sprint (as well as in slowing down to a full stop), but otherwise very well.
I also didn't notice any limping or strange gait, all of my teammates said it looked pretty smooth.
Incredible Hern, congrats my friend, more good things to look forward to for those with 2x metal hips.
Thanks for sharing,
Dan
Cool, looking forward to doing the same this summer. I'll be shy a couple months of a year on righty in June, so I'll need to start super slow and only play with friends at an easy pace.
Watch out for the young stupid men that don't know how to take it down a notch and the idiot refs that let the game go to pot. That's what worries me more than me damaging myself, it's being taken out be a vengeful player.
Let us know how the sprinting comes along. I'm really curious about if and how long it will take to get back to full speed. Being a sweeper, that's what I was good at. None of this fancy footwork.
Amazingly enough Tin - it was the tracking back on defense that was the most challenging. I play with a lot of latin / european players, and they were really using quick cuts / stepovers to try to get by. I did stay with them most of the time, but could tell my smaller muscles were working.
No pain though, stretched a couple of times to intercept the ball with bent knees, settling the ball after catching it in the air, etc. went fine. We play twice a week until late november, so I expect a lot of improvement.
Jumping for headers was probably the worst of my game, elevation is something I did not spend much time on during recuperation, but the jump itself was OK, the height was laughable.
I'll watch out for the stoopids, I am not small, though so hopefully they will downshift due to the impending crash. A friend of mine needs both knees done when someone took him down from behind in a league game. Some people are jerks.
I just played soccer for the first time in 2 years, last night. It was on my wife's coed team with a bunch of old friends. We did play against a bunch of 25 year olds, but they were farily easy-going. I was so nervous ahead of time. Butterflies in my stomach, sweat, the whole deal. I played defense and when the offense came down on me, crap that was freaky feeling. It all eased over. I got in a couple entanglements, a little push here and there, sprint, stop, turn, and a pass and it was like old times. Probably took about 10 minutes for me to feel comfortable, mentally. Otherwise, physically it didn't feel much different than before. My kick was feable, my lungs burned, but the speed was nearly like it was before HR and the sharp turns were surprisingly easy.
It felt great, I was stoked to be out there again. Afterward we all celebrated (not my new hips), the end of the indoor season, and had some pizza and beer. Like old times. We have a freindly summer pickup season coming up that I'm really looking forward to.
nice Tin...congrats...
Tin-
Way to go!!!! It has to feel great getting that first game behind you. I would have to say you are braver than I am. I am not doing any twisting or cutting until one year. The running is the most aggressive I am getting right now.
Dan
Awesome, Tin. It does come back quick and I was surprised by how natural the turns were. I expected a lot more issues with that.
This is great news for you both, Tin & Hern. I get very encouraged when I read these sort of victories, as I think soccer is probably just as physical as squash. A lot of changing of direction, pushing off each leg on different angles, lunging, jumping etc.
Lately I think my biggest challenge has been my mind second guessing whether I should go back to playing or not, but this thread is given me a good boost. When I mention that I intend to play squash again, some folk just look at me sideways & think I'm kidding myself. These non believers make me more determined to be the guy with the hip replacement that can still play a bit of squash. You guys are already proving you can do it with your soccer games.
Excellent work - keep up the progress reports!
Good game today, played mostly defense, which is actually a very good workout for those small muscles. All the Portuguese players were psyched about the upcoming Euro matches, so had more oomph than usual today, so good workout covering them.
Got a little bit of soreness (not much) in the groin area of my last hip (right), so will do the tennis ball thing when I get home. Otherwise, everything checked out, a little bit of slowness on the first step, so had to give the more quick players a little more respect than usual when covering them.
Had several breakaways come at me, covered most of them fine, the turn and run worked just fine. I'm really starting to get confident on my hips, kicking the ball is good, the heavier kicks are actually easier than the ones that require more control. I think all of that is because my smaller muscles need to be brought along.
I actually did a jumping header, twisted in the air from a corner kick and almost scored. I was just psyched to get up fairly high and twist, land without any pain. Yesssss!!!!!
Really good so far.
Wicked Hern - keep it up mate!
That is wicked. Watch out for the crazy ones with the flying sideways headers on the corners. A buddy of mine got his face smashed in, busted up the bridge of his nose and broke the cheekbone, reconstructed with steel. This was a from a goal hungry flying yahoo. Can you tell how I feel about forwards? sorry I guess as a defender I get a little defensive ::)
Kiwi - agree with any form of tennis, raquetball, squash,... it's a lot like indoor soccer, but in a smalller space, so I bet you have more stops and fast starts.
You're right Tin, it gets a little crazy near the goal. I had two guys on me at the time, they know me and headers. Not crazy about it though, I just guide it in. I do play with one ex marine who does the flying header thing. He stopped that around me when he crashed into my leg and crumpled a bit.
Good time, though and again, I think the PT and emphasis on working out helped, good stamina throughout.
Just had an idiot fly into me last night while I was defending a corner kick. I don't think this guy got the message that we are not slide takling and we are not going horizontal with our heads and that the game is supposed to be mellow and friendly. It really pissed me off. He knocked me over pretty hard and I was simply jumping straight up to head the ball out. I was fine, but I had the standard terrier tendency to go after the guy and not care an once about my health. That's not a good thing and it was a good wake up call that I shouldn't play soccer with losers like that.
I did wear myself out and worried a little about the discomfort in my hip that followed, but it all went away the next day, except for my anger towards the yahoo. Maybe I shouldn'ty play soccer.
We do have to take that into account, and see whether it's worth it.
My group is pretty respectful, but things periodically do get out of hand. We've had some injuries, so the potential is there. I had some spills and the hip complained, but still recovered pretty well.
I'd be pretty pissed, resurfacing or not - I have a couple of people here who periodically lose their minds thinking that a rolling ball is a live grenade. I'm playing it fairly safe, I think, and I think the hip now can stand up to things, but I am about a year down the road from you, Tin.
How do you feel now?
Where was the impact point? What point took the impact on landing? Either way it doesn't change the fact that a) These devices can take a decent hit & b) The guy who did it, is a an idiot.
Keep playing mate - don't let one clown spoil your fun.
Tin, how long post op are you now?
I feel good today, but a bit sore. 2 days after, which is always a little more sore for muscles and such. No pain whatsoever down deep. I'm just working the soft tissue a lot.
The idiot hit me square on in the side of the chest/arm when I was in the air and thus I landed on my side. No direct impact to the hip, but I had that crunchy/popping spine feeling with the impact. I still think it's really strange to only have muscle/soft tissue soreness after soccer. So many years I would hobble around for 3 or 4 days in near agony, thinking that I was just getting old at 40.
Nice thing about this group is the organizer is a close friend of mine and she's more than happy to uninvite the idiots.
I'm 8 months on no. 2 and 16 months on no. 1.
It does make you wonder how much impact it would take to move or upset things around the device. I think it would have to be severe - especially at your stage (although quite early on one side). Surely something else will give before the device - not that I want to find out by trial & error! Like Hern said, it's something we have to take into account when we go back to these types of physical activities. Is it worth it? Will obviously not if it breaks.. But what are the chances?
Soccer is possibly like squash, in that there's no such thing as an uncompetitive match. Squash is not meant to be a contact sport - but it is a confined space & more often than not there are collisions.
The Surgeons must have confidence in the device & security of it, as it's not like many say "Don't go back to playing high impact sports", in fact most seem to encourage it to an extent - don't they?
Agreed and I do think that most of the well-known HR surgeons expect that we will be back at the same level of activity, doing the same activities we used to do before serious OA set in. Obviously S&N promotes getting back to climbing, running, biking, skiing, soccer,.... maybe even squash ;) on their most recent ad for the BHR.
Love to see these ads Tin - I had a quick look in S & N website but no such like ads....that I could find.
Cherz.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBrspqg0NAQ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBrspqg0NAQ)
I didn't look too hard in the S&N website so I went to Youtube. This was a popluar ad in the US about 6 or so months ago.
Cheers for that Tin. I can't see the squash there, but hey it's not like they can fit in everything ;)
So I'm heading down to the courts tonight to have a casual game with my wife. Not much running though... PROMISE!
How'd it go? I have my weekly soccer match tonight and I'm hoping the dominant kicking leg will feel a little stronger. I think I need to do some interim exercises to strengthen the kicking muscles.
Went really well mate, I really enjoyed it and made a point of not running (much), so we played a length game. Got a really good sweat up and it felt great to crack the ball again. Timing seemed to be there which was a bit surprising.
My wife wasn't bored (she's training for district champs) and wants a regular hit with me as she thinks it's good for her game - playing someone who hits the ball harder than most of her usual opponents. So it's on again this Sat ;D