Pre-surgery training?

[Guest guest]

I was wondering whether anyone had any specific ideas about presurgical

training/physical therapy in an effort to improve/accelerate post-op

recovery - particularly since I'll be having a bilateral and will have

negligible post-op support.

I don't have a surgery date yet, but I've been trying really hard to

make up for the decreased activity caused by hip stiffness and pain.

I can only stand to train karate 2 or (in a good week) 3 times a week

(and there are a lot of things I just can't do, like kick worth a bucket

of warm spit), and afterwards I'm stiff and sore enough that I can't step

over a curb. To try to make up for this, I've been stationary cycling for

30-45 minutes on my non-karate days. So far, this is relatively painless

(after some discomfort during the first 5 minutes or so). I've been doing

yoga about once a week, which seems to help ROM and stability (although

it's increasingly uncomfortable). A couple of months ago, I started working

with a PT 1x/week in an effort to keep my hip musculature and my ROM from

deteriorating too far. Once I actually get a surgery date, I'm thinking about

stepping that up to 2x or 3x (while my insurance might not cover my

resurf - I'm still waiting to find out - it has *really* generous PT

benefits).

I basically stopped lifting weights at the beginning of December, when

I got new X-rays that showed I was bone-on-bone in both hips. Should I

rethink that? If so, what should I be trying to do? I can still

half-squat with a reasonable amount of weight, although I feel really

unstable. Deadlifts are pretty much impossible (not enough ROM to grab

the bar when it's on the floor). How about machines? For those of you

who've been through this, where did you have to put in the most work to

regain full function? I think adduction and abduction are going to be

the major problems for me. Does this seem correct to those of you

who've been through this?

Steve (bilateral wanna-be)