Athletics: lifting, agility, jumping etc. Post LL Surgery

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I know that many of you are into athletics of some sort regardless of the height you want to gain (or gained) from LL surgery. I've gotten several messages about my thoughts on if you can regain your physical fitness after lengthening, complications, what I lost etc. So I wanted to start a thread on any of the following topics...

• fears you may have of losing athleticism post-op
• if you did the LL surgery what was your rehab, rebuild protocol and have you regained or surpassed previous fitness levels
• staying within safe ranges of lengthening to avoid losing max running/sprinting, agility & jumping ability
• any long-term aches or pains you may have post-op
• pre-surgery stretching and flexibility exercises for optimal intra & post-op ROM
• Any other related topics you can think of...

Here's a recent video showing me squatting and doing some agility drills at my work office building while on this darn COVID-19 lockdown...


My broken leg history:
-1998: got hit by a car, broken right femur, had external fixator hold it into place for bone to heal
-1999: roller blading accident broke my left tibia at growth plates, stunted growth causing near 2" discrepancy when adult height
-2012: underwent PRECICE nail LL surgery to fix leg difference.
-2013: got PRECICE nail removed
-2014: spring was back to normal barely noticed I had the surgery minus the faint scars

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Thx Movie! Yeah man I hear ya about being extremely tough to be able to regain the full physicality post-op. I think taking preventative and early action is key to maximize the chances to get back to.

I hear it all the time that LLD is different than CLL. Believe it or not, from what others that I've talked to that got CLL done, it's much more similar (in fact, possibly harder to come back due to the spinal, joint and tendon torque adaptations that took place all those years of me being imbalanced-I still have some to this point today). Genetically my left tibia had stopped growing thus all tendons, muscles, fascia etc. were stopped at that height since the body doesn't have instructions to grow more and I experienced the tightness that a typical CLL patient would have added on the extreme muscle tension that comes from having several years of bodybuilding under my belt.

Now I'm not sure when you got your surgery done, and 8cm on the femurs no doubt changes your structural and soft tissue biomechanics,

But what do you think is preventing you from getting back to where you were before? Purely height gain, lack of ROM, strength, poor proprioceptive senses? Age? (because believe it or not this plays a role- ex: I won't be as good as I was in my 20's when I'm 40)

Curious because I think you're right, it took me about 2+years of some advanced training (stuff I wasn't doing before) post-op to get back to my prior strength levels but I didn't allow myself to accept the fact I couldn't get back or surpass. You did say you're good with not being back 100% as I assume you don't play competitive soccer anymore so that's cool too and I'm with you trust me, once I retire from natural bodybuilding I won't be lifting like a madman anymore lol plan to move on to martial arts lol.

And excuse the crappy agility drills, although I was a track and field sprinter in high school, I haven't run or did drills since that video and it was immediately after leg workout