Hi, After about 2 years of pain in my hip, brought on by improving my flexibility and kicking training, I've finally been diagnosed with FAI, which has caused 2 laberal tears in my right hip, one of them now has 2 small cysts in it!! I'm booked in to see a surgeon early next year. The referring sports physician said the most likely course of action will be key hole surgery to fix the tears as well as smoothing out the CAM type FAI. Just curious if anyone else has had this type of surgery and what your outcome has been. Have you been able to return to normal training after? Any complications? Thanks
I wish you in good health in the coming years. I haven't been diagnosed like that before and hopefully not. I will only give advice about complications that just follow the doctors advice after surgery, ask your doctor of what you can do and what you should avoid to do and trust them that you will be find during surgery. According to studies that FAI may predispose an individual to development of early hip osteoarthritis if not treated surgically (Ganz). With surgery, arthroscopic approaches are technically difficult, and may result in an incomplete resection of impinged tissues; the overall complication rate for hip arthroscopy is 1.3% (Shah). With open surgery, there is an increased risk of infection and bone death (avascular necrosis), as well as increased recovery time; individuals who return to activity too early have an increased risk for femoral neck fracture. you can find more details with this site http://www.mdguidelines.com/femoral-acetabular-impingement I also found this blog that have same issue like you. hes gonna be treated surgically this year soon. http://runjorgerun.wordpress.com/
Hey, I have exactly the same, I've had hip pain for almost 4 years after training Wushu in China and all the doctors told me that there's nothing wrong until last summer. Due to "deformed" femoral heads and all the kicking and squatting I have labral tears in both hips. I've had hip arthroscopy in my right hip almost 8 weeks ago, the other side will be done next spring/summer. The surgeon did a CAM-section, fixated the labrum with two anchors and cut away some inflammed parts. Had to use crutches for 6 weeks. I'm still doing loads of rehab, in the beginning it was mostly light movements in the water, now I'm doing some bodyweight squats, lunges and deadlifts (not full ROM, not more than 90° hip flexion), stationary bike multiple times a day and some one legged balance training on unstable surfaces and lots of joint mobility. At this point I can't tell you anything, allthough the surgeon and my physical therapist (who also had this surgery) said that if I do splits, kicks, deep weighted squats and stop and go sports in general again, I'll probably need hip-replacement in 10-15 years.... It sucks but this is such a new area and they still don't know that much about its long time success so I just hope and work everyday to make the best out of it. Hope that helped a bit! btw, there are estimates that up to 25% of the population have the potential to this problem due to the shape of their bones so just imagine those huge Kungfu schools in China with thousands of kids... If they get problems in their hips nobody cares and the'll be messed up for the rest of their lives
Thanks for the extra info guys. Its still a few weeks before my appointment but will keep you updated in this thread for future reference for anyone else that has to go through this. Longquan, It would be great if you could update me on your progress from time to time.
I had hip surgery in june to address a labral tear and FAI. After 16 years of taekwondo, my body finally got the better of me. Some good news, and some bad news. The good news is that recovery has taken only about 6 months which is great. Got mobility back which means I can run, cycle, swim, and do most other things that I enjoy. The bad news is that I have a reduced range of motion (chest height kicks only now with my bad leg when head kicks were fine before), twisting is uncomfortable so spinning kicks are not really on the menu any more, and there is potential that the other one will need doing soon too. So for the extreme ranges of motion required for kicking, it is probable (but not certain) that you will have less range of motion and some kicks will be impossible for you to do well. Unfortunately this has contributed to a much lower training load and hence a lowering of my fitness and flexibility over the last year and a bit. Don't think I'll ever be as good as I was at my peak (2009/10), and unfortunately it means that I cant enjoy TKD to the same extent that I used to. Getting used to the idea of switching sports after giving so many years to it is the hardest thing. You will get mobility back after surgery, and I'm probably still more mobile in my hips than a lot of people. However the sad truth is that martial arts involving a lot of kicks puts a lot of pressure on the hip joint of people who have FAI, and can in most cases lead to damage. Sucks, but true story bro.
I'm almost 4 months post surgery and will have the other hip (left ide) done in June or July. Overall, my right hip feels pretty good now, theres still some pain from time to time but I'm allowed to to ATG squats, kettlebell swings and stuff like that. I'm also using more and more weight on my deadlifts, lunges and squats and I started doing some active leg stretches while in a handstand position. Actually, I was surprised how good my flexibility still is, although I didn't and won't try the splits for now. @Roaster: I'm surprised you're already doing kicks again, did your doctor allow you to do them? Mine said I should never do kicks again if I don't want to get an artificial hip, but he seems to be pretty conservative... I can feel your pain as I can't imagine never doing high kicks again all the best
A quick update, my surgery is set for 20th March 2012 so only a few weeks now. The guys that have had it done, which type did you have? The pincer or the CAM? I have the CAM which I believe requires less surgery and reshaping than the pincer type. Surgeon says recovery will be 1-2 weeks of no walking 6-8 weeks on crutches 6-9 months before back to 100%
I had/have CAM too! Some have a combination of pincer and CAM, that must suck I used the crutches for about 6 weeks, although my surgeon allowed me to use only one crutch when I'm inside (after 2 weeks) and a couple of steps without any. It's is very important to start moving a lot after about two weeks, very low resistance on the stationary bike a couple of times a day and some exercises in the pool as your body needs to build new synovial fluid around the hip joint. When you do too much and experience more pain, listen to your body and go easier for a couple of days
while i don't have any experience with FAI myself, have you checked out van zandt's flexibility threads? he specifically talks about it, about why some kinds of movements cause it, and how to prevent it, so while it's too late to prevent it now, it might help with preventing reincidence post-surgery. anyway, good luck going under the knife! hope you make a swift recovery
Sounds interesting! I've read quite a bit of Van Zandt's stuff and I tried the search function too, bu other than he said it's definitely possible to return to kicking practice I couldn't find his recommendations of what movements to avoid or how to execute them to avoids FAI. Do you, by any chance, happen to remember the specific thread or do you remember if he had any other recommendations for the "right" kicking rechniques other than what Tom Kurz has said/written? thanks!
he never used the exact term femoro-acetabular impingement, that i can remember, but he's mentioned it on occasion, generally in reference to the tilt of the pelvis while doing stretches, leg raises or kicks (basically if you try to lift your leg by sheer hip abduction, you hit the hip socket with the femur and eventually it goes kaput, so you have to tilt your hips and either use flexion or extension for the bulk of the motion). he mentions it relative to the splits in the beginner's guide to flexibility, as well as here: http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showpost.php?p=34138341&postcount=3, here: http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showpost.php?p=34063942&postcount=4 and here: http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10642034&postcount=9
LOL strangely enough improving my flexibility is what caused my issues. 20+ years of kicking at the level my body was happy with no real problems but when I made a serious attempt to improve my flexibility beyond that ROM I started getting pain. I have two boney ridges on the outside edge of my femoral head. In my normal range of flexibility they weren't a problem but as I increased my ROM, on lateral movements, the ridges (below) began to make contact with the connective tissue inside my hip joint and well...thats never a good thing. This resulted in the two labral tears that I have and the need for surgery to correct them, the bone reshaping is being done to stop it happening again and give me a more normal shape to the end of my femor Its not the tilt of the pelvis that is the issue, FAI is an anatomical skeletal abnormality but thanks for the thought anyway. So its either bad Karma for wanting to kick people in the head more efficiently...or its just Van Zandts fault somehow
Thanks for the help @ fish of doom! I already practiced the pelvis tilting and learned the splits using Tom Kurz' PNF & Horsestance method. Unforunately, as proteinnerd said, the bone overgrowth is the problem, I guess even with a correct technique it would probably happen. I did those splits [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTYaeekCrFc"]Sidesplit update - YouTube[/ame] [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZjrsLS_hfM"]Oversplits - YouTube[/ame] after running around with pain in my hip for several years, but all the doctors told me my hips were fine. I also wish you all the best for your surgery, proteinnerd!
Hi Guys, Just following up post-op. If your interested, I've just posted some details and pics on my blog. Rather than re-write and re-post the pics, its easier to just post a link. http://www.trainingforsplits.com/
