You can definitely get your legs muscular and look great.
If you want 90% recovery, sure it might be possible, but my point is that if you aren't willing to accept anything less than X% amount of recovery you are setting yourself up for disappointment. You need to be potentially ready to not walk properly for awhile, and then not be as strong/athletic for awhile- And perhaps have signifigantly decreased athletic performance.
Again, thats not to say you can't/won't be quickly and almost fully recovered but there is a big difference between what is possible and what is guaranteed. Neither I or anyone else can say "yeah you will recover X amount for sure". Even with the best dr. you could die on the operating table, never walk again, have numerous complications, walk poorly, walk well but not be able to run, and the list goes on.
You are signing up for a risk with LL and some areas of your quality of life WILL change- and the best anyone can do is give you an average of how much that change will be. Anyone giving guarantees is a liar/irresponsible.
Past LLers willing to chat about your experience? I'll pay you for your time.
Full athletic recovery I would say is impossible, but your satisfaction depends in large part on your lifestyle. My main concern (as vain as this sounds) is to look good, so I wanted to be taller and still be able to lift weights/squat etc. and do cardio at least at the gym (row machine, stairmaster, elliptical, etc.). Running/jogging is important to me, but I've never been a runner per se, so it's not a dealbreaker as it might be to some. But I remain committed to as full a recovery as I can.
As far as my leg strength, my quads/hamstrings/glutes are filling in nicely. I actually have a nice ass again lol. And I think my strength in squats/weights for legs is pretty much what it was pre-LL. Or, VERY close to it.
Quote from: programdude on April 06, 2016, 05:50:13 PMYou can definitely get your legs muscular and look great.
If you want 90% recovery, sure it might be possible, but my point is that if you aren't willing to accept anything less than X% amount of recovery you are setting yourself up for disappointment. You need to be potentially ready to not walk properly for awhile, and then not be as strong/athletic for awhile- And perhaps have signifigantly decreased athletic performance.
Again, thats not to say you can't/won't be quickly and almost fully recovered but there is a big difference between what is possible and what is guaranteed. Neither I or anyone else can say "yeah you will recover X amount for sure". Even with the best dr. you could die on the operating table, never walk again, have numerous complications, walk poorly, walk well but not be able to run, and the list goes on.
You are signing up for a risk with LL and some areas of your quality of life WILL change- and the best anyone can do is give you an average of how much that change will be. Anyone giving guarantees is a liar/irresponsible.
programdude,
I am prepared for the possibility, even the likelihood, that I won't be able to walk properly for awhile, and of course that I won't be as strong/athletic for awhile after the surgery. What I'm concerned with here is the eventual recovery.
As with anything in life, I know that there are no guarantees — certainly not when it comes to a major surgery. I was just trying to gauge the *likelihood* of recovering 100% of one's previous athleticism. The consensus seems to be that the likelihood is close to zero, and I'm okay with that. In truth, a 90% athletic recovery wouldn't be unacceptable to me. I took an extreme "100% or bust" stance in my initial post because I wanted to invite the strongest possible criticism.
This brings me to another topic I wanted to raise: There was a interesting thread on here not long ago where the OP drew a distinction between one's "actual" athletic potential and their "realized" athletic potential. In a nutshell, the idea was that unless you're a professional athlete who has pushed himself to his limit, you would really have no idea what your true pre-LL athletic potential was. So to illustrate: Say that prior to surgery, you ran a 40-yard dash and clocked in at 5.2 seconds. Now, if you had actually trained intensively for the 40, perhaps you had the innate potential to run a 4.7. Now imagine that post-LL surgery, you take a renewed interest in athletics because, for the first time, you are actually PROUD of your body and want to maximize it. I can certainly relate to this notion: for example, it's hard for me to get excited about bodybuilding because I don't have a foundational acceptance of my body's "frame". I look at myself in those mirrors at the gym and think, "What's the point? No matter how hard I work out, I'm just going to look like a buff teenager, never a man." So I have little doubt that I would train harder post-LL than I do now. Anyway, back to the example: Immediately after LL, your athleticism takes a big hit because you're recovering from a major surgery. You now run a pathetic 6.0 on the 40. But because you actually appreciate your body for once, you start training in earnest. After some time, you eventually get up to the point where you're running a 4.9. So here's where the important distinction comes into play: Due to the surgery, your "actual" potential on the 40-yard dash slowed from 4.7 seconds to 4.9 seconds. However, you are finally pushing yourself to your athletic limit, and you are now running faster than you ever have before.
Now, is the above scenario a realistic conceptualization of what decreased athleticism could look like, if one began training harder than they ever had before? Again, I'm not looking for guarantees here — I'm just trying to get an idea of whether this is plausible. Or does decreased athleticism mean accepting being "gimpy" for the rest of your life?
Quote from: YellowSpike on April 06, 2016, 05:59:33 PM
As far as my leg strength, my quads/hamstrings/glutes are filling in nicely. I actually have a nice ass again lol. And I think my strength in squats/weights for legs is pretty much what it was pre-LL. Or, VERY close to it.
YellowSpike,
So you believe you'll eventually be able to exceed your pre-LL maximum's on those lifts? Do you have any concern that the new bone in your femurs might not be strong enough to support heavy weight on the squat? That's a biggie for me. I've read that the new bone grows in just as strong or stronger than the existing bone, but I wanted to hear your thoughts since you are actually experiencing it.
Quote from: KiloKAHN on April 05, 2016, 09:47:18 PMMy walking and going up/down stairs is back to pre-op level. Running feels a bit weird and I have to stop quickly because of pressure that builds up, but I think I have CECS and it's something that not everyone will encounter. From what I've gathered, explosiveness and endurance are what take the biggest hits when running. I'm going to be reuniting with my old judo team on Monday and my old coach brought an extra gi so I can practice with them. I'll let you know how that goes and probably post a vid of what I'm able to do.
Hi Kilo,
How did your judo meet go?
Quote from: Quincy on April 22, 2016, 11:34:46 PMHi Kilo,
How did your judo meet go?
Relative got in a car accident the Friday just before so I skipped the meet to take care of her while she was recovering.
Quote from: KiloKAHN on April 23, 2016, 01:47:35 AM
Relative got in a car accident the Friday just before so I skipped the meet to take care of her while she was recovering.
Yikes, are they ok?
Damn, sorry to hear that. Hope she recovers quickly.
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