Day 30
I thought I would give an update for those of you that are concerned about working out and maintaining your upper body strength while lengthening. This was one of my main concerns going into this process, but I've actually been able to work out since about 2 weeks post-op. Of course my workouts are pretty limited, due to lack of serious equipment, but I think I've been able to keep maybe 80-90% percent of my strength thus far. If I can maintain this throughout the rest of the lengthening phase I'll be very happy.
If you have access to a hotel or apartment gym, or can even wheel yourself over to an actual gym, you will be able to use pin-loaded machines and cable machines and get a really good workout in. However, I am limited to a weight bench with a variety of dumbbells, resistance bands, and a door frame pull-up bar. Today for example, I did chest and triceps. I started with dumbbell flies on a flat bench. Then I did dumbbell presses on the flat bench. One of the most difficult parts is picking up heavier dumbbells from the floor without using your legs to stabilize yourself. That being said, I only feel comfortable lifting 55 or 60 lb dumbbells without losing my balance. That isn't enough for me to do chest presses, so I will also wrap a resistance band under the bench and hold it in each hand while I grip the dumbbells, and then swing them up one at a time before laying down. This allows me to get a pretty good pump. Then I did both of these exercises with the bench in an incline position. After that I transferred myself onto the floor and did push ups for the first time since the surgery. It didn't hurt at all. Then I did dips on my walker. They look flimsy but they can support 350 lbs (also mine doesn't have wheels). Just be very careful you don't lose your grip, or expend too much energy to where you can't stand up after the last rep. Lastly, I laid back down on the bench and did tricep extensions with a dumbbell.
I have PT every other day, which is quite a workout for the lower body in itself, so I work my upper body on all of the days that I don't have PT. I have 3 different upper body workout routines that I do. Chest and triceps (described above), back and biceps, and shoulders. For back and biceps, I start with seated curls. Then I set the bench to about a 45 degree incline, and do curls in which I rotate the dumbbells about halfway up. I am also still trying to find a comfortable way to do concentration curls without resting my elbow on my broken femurs. Then I switch to back, and my go-to exercise here is pull-ups on my perfect pull-up bar. I do wide, narrow, and hammer grip. I think I am going to attempt some dumbbell rows if I can get myself to lay face forward on the incline bench.
My third muscle group that I work out is shoulders. This is probably the easiest workout to do solely with dumbbells, but I also consider it the most important to look proportional after LL. I think wide shoulders are the best way to not look too skinny after gaining 2 or 3 inches. I start with side raises to hit the medial delts. Then I do front raises, which can be a little difficult because of the natural tendency to try and support yourself with your legs. Next I do Arnold presses, which is where you start with the dumbbells down by your chest, palms facing inward and then you rotate as you press upward. Then I typically do more front and side raises, and I finish up with regular shoulder presses. I normally would start the workout with the heavy shoulder presses, but since I can't go really heavy I like to be slightly tired out before this exercise.
That sums up my workout routine for now, just thought I would share it in case anyone had the same concerns that I did.
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Topic: Short2tall internal femurs with Dr. Mahboubian (Read 23189 times)