Should I stop working out my leg muscles 2 years prior to my limb lengthening?

Edit Post

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

Edit Post

Quote from: lessthanavg8300 on October 20, 2022, 03:04:04 PMIf 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

Edit Post

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. 

Edit Post

Quote from: lessthanavg8300 on October 20, 2022, 03:15:04 PMMuch 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

Edit Post

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.

Edit Post

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

Edit Post

Quote from: wannabe6feet on October 19, 2022, 05:59:35 AMI'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

Edit Post

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.