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[wannabe6feet]

I'm planning to get my limb lengthening surgery with either Dr Paley or Live life taller in 2024, I hit legs sessions 2 times every week at the gym and I have quite big quads, Should I stop working them out to minimize the muscles in my legs? so that they don't have to dig deeper into my muscles to reach my bones which would cause more pain to me post surgery and more effort for surgeons to perform the surgery

[SpeedDialer]

deleted post

[Medium Drink Of Water]

Yes.

[RealLostSoul]

Yes definitely. You will have a hard time stretching those muscles if you go in with a bodybuilder physique

[wannabe6feet]

Thank you.

[SpeedDialer]

Yes

If I could do it over again, I would stretch more (stretching your legs is your new leg day) and then also replace some of my upper body workout with the wheelchair/walker/crutch/transfers etc exercises/proper technique that cyborg4life and some other LLers have on their youtube channels. Just imagine your thighs feel like 70 each pounds and its hard to actually use them, "how would you move on the bed/modify your movements? you have to rely more on your arms/lats/chest etc" to get a sense of the challenge- mainly the first two weeks are the biggest challenge I feel and then I regained alot of my thigh strength and it became easier. I do think though that actually maybe all this walker/crutch/certain transfers was related to my wrist pain so maybe take it easy during training. If you don't want to buy any of those things (wheelchair, walker, etc) beforehand then probably your regular upper body workout is fine. See LL videos for how we use the wheelchair/walker/crutches, we don't quite use them the way some people might think (at least for example you use the crutches much differently than people with casts on one leg use crutches)

That being said, cyborg4life was an LLer and a bodybuilder (think he did tibias tho which should be easier in terms of pain I feel) and I think his athleticism helped him overall despite having thicker calves

If you end up not going with Paley and instead up using a clicking device like gnail with Guichet or Giotikas, I will say that a PT in Athens told me that clicking is harder if your muscles are bigger

The other thing I'll say is this first week or so your quads will be swollen after the surgery, which makes it painful and uncomfortable to sit in the wheelchair for some people. If my thighs were even bigger, I have to think it would be even more uncomfortable

[sixfootandhalf]

Absolutely.

My surgery is in a good time period away, and i'm stretching to be able to do the splits , front and lateral - as much as i can safely do with a reliable YT channel. All i am trying to do now, is stretch, and work on balance, posture / get rid of my current duck ass. I want to arrive for the surgery extremely flexible.

[sixfootandhalf]

Would you recommend those portable dip machines just two bars you can put on the floor at a height of like  80cm and do dips on? Getting up and down / dips seems to be a huge part of it.

[RealLostSoul]

to be honest with you I agree with SpeedDialer except the upper body strength. I mean you can still work that out sure but it is not necessary in my opinion. The transferring is more of an adaption thing because all of a sudden you need to use different muscles to move around. I am skin and bones very low weight with no muscles at all (aaalmost like Luang Pho Yai by now haha , google it, and yes you will lose more weight) and I had zero troubles adapting, I think adapting was one of the easiest parts of LL and I got the hang out of most things on surgery day. For femurs the only thing that will be tricky in the beginning, but I think your physique is not related to this, is standing up if you sit low (toilet etc). that is because you push yourself up with your arms but if you have to grab the handles of the crutch from low your shoulder joints are too far up to be able to easily create momentum/force to pull yourself up. You will find ways to cope with that, like having one hand on something else or I like to put the crutch kinda like a bit behind/diagonally me to have a better angle with my shoulders. It's tbh the only tricky transfer thing.

[SpeedDialer]

to be honest with you I agree with SpeedDialer except the upper body strength. I mean you can still work that out sure but it is not necessary in my opinion. The transferring is more of an adaption thing because all of a sudden you need to use different muscles to move around. I am skin and bones very low weight with no muscles at all (aaalmost like Luang Pho Yai by now haha , google it, and yes you will lose more weight) and I had zero troubles adapting

Yeah actually screw it, you might be right. Lower total body weight is probably more important (most important factor aside from flexibility). There is a 6 foot (his original height was less) patient in Athens now (know him?   ) and he is like 125 pounds and because of his low weight he probably just doesn't even need that much upper body strength

I'm not sure whether to recommend the dipping stand/machine to OP, it is probably a good idea and it does train all the right muscles, I'm just a bit worried if it causes wrist pain for him right before the surgery then I'd regret that recommendation

And I wonder if my total body weight was just lower if I would not be having this wrist pain (which is not that bad, only flares up during certain movements but I feel maybe could have been avoided)

[lessthanavg8300]

If lengthening femurs, how much do hamstrings play a role?  This is my weakest point right now.  Everything else is flexible.

[SpeedDialer]

If lengthening femurs, how much do hamstrings play a role?  This is my weakest point right now.  Everything else is flexible.

Here are my observations so far, hope they can help:

1. Hamstrings were also my weakest point before starting gnail femurs

2. When I walk now with the crutches/antigravity treadmill it feels like my hamstrings are being stretched (yes normal walking feels like a hamstring stretch to me now at about 3.5 cm). So I would say they are extremely important because they get stretched when you walk, they also get stretched when you bend down to pick something up

3. During physical therapy when the PT stretches my legs with his arms, the hamstring stretches are excruciating like 8 out of 10 pain

So basically I am saying that your instinct is already correct

However, if all of your other muscles are flexible I willing to bet that your starting flexibility is probably better than it was for most of us doing LL now

[lessthanavg8300]

Much appreciated info.  Does anything tug on your back?  Asking because I had a previous back injury that I just recovered from.  Though it was disc related, not tendon or muscle related.  But things tightened up and are just loosening up now.


Im going to work on hams every day until my surgery about 2.5 months from now. 

[SpeedDialer]

Much appreciated info.  Does anything tug on your back?  Asking because I had a previous back injury that I just recovered from.  Though it was disc related, not tendon or muscle related.  But things tightened up and are just loosening up now.


Im going to work on hams every day until my surgery about 2.5 months from now.

I'm sorry this happened to you, Dr. Assayag or any health professionals out there can help with this? Does he need to modify any hamstring stretches because of the back injury?

Nothing tugs on my back but I wonder if you need to modify any stretches or something based on your injury. I am afraid of telling you something that might make it worse

[lessthanavg8300]

Appreciate the kind words.   I'm actually completely good now.  I had surgery (artificial disc) which completely fixed the issue.  Better than ever and my hamstrings are actually looser because of it.  Glad nothing tugs on the back though just in case.

[SpeedDialer]

There is still a confusion I'm trying to figure out-- wonder if someone with some medical background can look at the data Dr. Paley used to discover that stretching beforehand seems to only last 24 hours he says

I'm confused by this because --how do we reconcile it with what we see anecdotally? Ex: there is a 23 year old patient in Athens who started out with great flexibility and guess what, the days and weeks after his flexibility is alot better than ours still (ex: heel of foot to butt, other stretches he has great range of motion). It feels like he did retain alot of that flexibility so what's going on?

And also uh like.. if someone did not stretch at all before the surgery, it seems like they'd be tight and it would hurt them in the recovery afterwards? Ex: patients who didn't do the assigned stretches, do they do worse during recovery?

But Dr. Paley looked at the data so he should be right, he has way more datapoints than us, I just want to understand how things work exactly. I think one forum person suggested an idea that maybe pre-stretching helps but won't get you the whole way there, but I wonder if there is more to it than that

But I guess at this point I mean screw it, I am going to stretch no matter what, I mean aside from the time it takes up I don't see any downside and it may have possible upside so I will do it. And you have to do some kind of physical activity to be healthy in general, why not make it stretching and some mobility exercises. If I do internal tibias someday, it makes sense to me to stretch the tibias everyday before the surgery ---like I feel like I have nothing to lose (except a few minutes per day) by doing so and probably something to gain

[SpeedDialer]

I'm planning to get my limb lengthening surgery with either Dr Paley or Live life taller in 2024, I hit legs sessions 2 times every week at the gym and I have quite big quads, Should I stop working them out to minimize the muscles in my legs? so that they don't have to dig deeper into my muscles to reach my bones which would cause more pain to me post surgery and more effort for surgeons to perform the surgery

Sorry after reading someone's else's advice, I take back what I said, I think just try to stretch in ways that you are willing to do consistently, take it very easy on working out/don't get hurt or hurt wrists

I think your dipping stand idea is good but I am afraid of someone hurting their wrists from using it alot so maybe take it easy/don't do too many reps/maybe assist with your legs a bit just like you will during LL. I think just be chill and comfortable, might as well enjoy your last months of being pain-free and injury-free

After thinking about it, I think it is probably true that a lower body weight overall is more important than having great upper body strength. Ex: the extremely skinny patients with very little upper body strength/skinny arms seem to be doing great

[sixfootandhalf]

Few questions for Dr Paley:

How does he define stretching beforehand?

What if someone took it so seriously, that they stretched enough to be able to do the splits and beyond, verses just doing basic stretches that just were...well basic!

Going in being able to do lateral/front splits, being extremely flexible, verses going in doing basic stretches and being able to just be less stiff, so much so a short increase in length tightens up minimal gains.

I'd like Dr Paley to assess stretching in terms of patients who can do the splits vs patients who can't before hand.