A Story About a 72 Year Old Client.
Find out how our 72 year old client went from in pain, unable to walk more than 10 minutes, and never strength training to out of pain, walking for as long as she wants, and strength training 3 x a week!
Ebelina was just entering into semi-retirement. As part of this, she liked going for walks and had plans to enjoy retirement with travelling and spending time with her family. This all came to a frustrating halt when she started getting hip pain. It had become so bad that she wasn’t able to go for walks, cross her legs, or go up and down stairs without experiencing significant discomfort. This really got her worried, she wondered whether this just aging…is this how things are just going to go?
We started Ebelina on our 3 step process: (1) Calm it down (2) Build it up (3) Bridge the gap
Calm it down
At first, we started by reducing her activity levels so that they were ‘sub threshold’. As you can see by the graph to the right, her tolerance was being exceeded and this was causing her hip to become increasingly sensitive and then her being able to do less and less. So although it means less walking for the short term, this helped to really calm things down. This meant going for 10 minute walks, which was very conservative but at least it got her to gain control over her symptoms. During this phase, we also implemented some manual therapy to reduce the symptoms and provide a little relief…not 100% necessary but can be good when things have been hurting really bad. Lastly, we did some light movement of the hip just to get it moving and instil some confidence in hip movement. Light movement can also be pain relieving, and this was the case for her. Since Ebelina hadn’t done much strength training either, it helped just introduce a little movement and gauge how her body was going to respond.
Build it Up
Ebelina was gradually increasing her walking little by little and monitoring the response. The key during this was to do small enough increases that if she overstepped, it was easy enough to back track. This was a frustrating process because it took a while BUT the reason she was able to see success was because she trusted the process. Further, this is where we started introducing progressive overload via strength exercises. As you can see on the graph, this allowed walking to increase in conjunction with gradually increasing walking. The goal was to build up her musculature around her hip AND build tolerance in her hip joint surface to stress. At first, she couldn’t do a lunge due to pain and inadequate strength, she could do bodyweight squats, bodyweight hip hinging, glute bridges with two feet, but struggled with more intense variations and balance. Over the course of 2-3 months, she build up to being able to do single leg bridges, goblet squats, split squats about 75% range of motion, and deadlifts with some load. She still struggled with her balance, and her pain was still bothering her with crossing her legs, but overall the pain was minimal at the end of this phase and her strength was increasing.
Bridge the Gap
By now, Ebelina was beginning to notice how the increases in strength were benefitting her quality of life. Stairs were becoming easier, her mobility was showing improvements, and it was getting easier to get up and down from the ground. What’s amazing, is this was all occurring at 72 when she had never strength trained before. Often times, this phase looks like return to sport but this scenario was a bit different. This was about creating a ‘buffer’ of strength so that she’d be less likely to have pain and if she did she’d be in a better spot to manage it. It was also about creating stone cold habits to keep her healthy and strong throughout the rest of her retirement. Here’s some mind blowing notes from Ebelina’s recovery
she had 90% exercise completion
she was able to do walking lunges
she was able to do curtsy lunges
she could do single leg bridges from an elevation
she gained muscle in her legs and jeans were fitting tighter
she was confident…
