Episode 31 – The Importance of Upper Body Strength After a Hip Replacement - Transcript
Welcome to The Hip Replacement Podcast, where recovery meets motivation and healing leads to a whole new lifestyle.
I'm Chris Bystriansky, your host. I'm an author, athlete, and double hip replacement patient. I've been through the surgeries, the setbacks, and the comebacks. And I'm here to help you do the same.
Each week, I'll bring you tips, tools, expert advice, and inspiring stories to help you take back your life one step at a time.
Thanks for joining The Hip Replacement Podcast. New hips, new you. Let's go.
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Welcome back to The Hip Replacement Podcast. I'm Chris Bystriansky, your host. I'm a two-time hip replacement patient, one more than 12 years ago and the other one more than 10 years ago. And I'm here to share my experiences with you.
In this episode, I'm going to talk about why upper body strength is important for hip replacement patients.
Sometimes we focus way too much on the hip and then our legs and what's going on down there, and we forget about our upper body strength and all the benefits that we could get by simply increasing our upper body strength even just a little bit.
I'm going to talk about four general topics regarding upper body strength. First, what in the world is upper body strength? The second area is why is upper body strength important? Third general big area is what parts of the body are included with upper body strength. And then the fourth area is how do you get upper body strength or how do you increase it?
So those four topics: what is it? Why is it important? What's included? And how do you get it? That should cover a lot.
This is a great opportunity to jump over to our YouTube channel because towards the end of this episode, I'm going to be showing you some things and I will describe them as best as I possibly can. So if you're listening, I'll describe it as best I can. But if you want to see, you just pop over to the YouTube channel and there will be a link in the show notes below that will get you directly to the YouTube channel and you can just watch the section of the video that has to do with the things I'm showing you for upper body strength.
Which leads me to a reminder. We have a YouTube channel and if you want to watch any of the episodes, you can do it there or you can listen on whatever podcast platform you're listening to now. Doesn't matter. Some episodes may help if you just watch a little bit of the videos. Anyway, the link will be in the show notes below.
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When we're talking about upper body strength, a lot of times we forget how important that is because we get so wrapped up in our hips and in our legs and what's going on below our waist. And we forget that even a small improvement in our upper body strength can go a long way in improving our quality of life, helping us reduce risk and just letting us do things without putting overdue stress and taking undue risks with our hips.
So even small improvements go a long way in this area.
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Okay. So first big section. What in the world is upper body strength?
It's not just for big bodybuilders. You see these people, these guys and these girls who have these huge V shapes in their upper body and their muscles are ripping out of their shirts. No, we're not talking about that. We're not talking about that at all.
This episode is not about creating Mr. or Mrs. Olympia where you've got muscles all over the place, muscles to spare. We don't need that. We're just talking about getting a little bit stronger to help us navigate our world and our lives and take some stress off our hips.
So, what is upper body strength?
Upper body strength is the ability of the muscles above the waist to push, pull, lift, stabilize, and control movement during daily and everyday activities and exercise. It allows you to move your body safely, maintain your posture, and perform tasks without excessive strain or fatigue on your whole body, most importantly without excessive strain or fatigue on your hips and your legs.
So that's what is upper body strength.
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Let's talk about why this is important. And I have a whole host of reasons why this is important.
First reason why upper body strength is important is because it leads to safer mobility and transfers, for example from sitting to standing and what have you. So it includes strong arms, shoulders and core which make it easier and safer to get in and out of chairs, beds, cars and even toilets.
Early in recovery, and I remember this happening, many people rely on their upper body to reduce stress on the new hip. And even over the long term, upper body strength provides stability during daily movements, lowering the risk of slips, awkward positions, or sudden loads on a joint that could lead to falls or discomfort.
Picture yourself getting up and down from a chair or getting in and out of the car. I remember when I was first going through the recovery, whether that was a week, a month, a year, two years, all that stuff is part of the recovery. And the more I was able to use my upper body to pull myself up out of a chair, to pull myself out of the car or to lower myself down gently, those were all incredibly helpful.
So, upper body strength was important to me and I'm sure it is important to you every single time you get up or you sit down.
Second reason why it's important is that it reduces the fall risk.
Upper body strength helps you react quickly if you stumble. Strong arms and strong shoulders allow you to grab railings, grab counters or tables, or walking assistance devices, whether that's a cane, a walker, or crutches, to help steady yourself.
It improves your posture and balance by supporting the torso, your midsection, the area around your belly button that goes all the way around you. This helps keep your center of gravity controlled. And if you start to fall, if you feel yourself falling, that is because your center of gravity is not where it should be. Your center of gravity starts moving forward or backward or sideways, and the first thing that happens is you reach out your arms in a given direction. Upper body strength will help stabilize that.
Fewer falls means fewer setbacks, fewer risks, and more confidence as you're moving through your day.
Third reason why upper body strength is important, and we all go through this, this is so critical, because it's easier to use walking assistance devices like walkers and canes, poles or crutches, guard rails or the rails on stairways.
I remember my arms and my hands being incredibly sore when I was going through my initial recovery. And for each of my hips, I was using walking assistance devices at the direction of my surgeon and a physical therapist for a long time.
I was on a walker for two weeks followed by two weeks of crutches followed by two more weeks of one crutch. And I did that for both hips. And I was a healthy guy. So I was still on all those walking assistance devices because my physical therapist and the doctors wanted me to recover and for the muscles and the bones to get back to where they needed to be, for the bones to heal before I started putting a lot of weight on them.
So being able to firmly grasp the walking assistance devices was very important. Strong arms allow you to offload a lot of the weight from the hip whenever it's needed, especially on uneven terrain or stairs or longer walks, because you're able to hold on to those things better without your upper body getting sore or tired or without you making a mistake.
Without sufficient upper body strength, the walking assistance tools can feel awkward or exhausting instead of supportive. Think about when you use a walker or crutches or cane. Sometimes it can feel like you're dragging that thing along or you're fighting with it rather than you being able to easily maneuver that piece of equipment to help you support your weight. Upper body strength helps you move that piece of equipment easily.
The fourth reason that upper body strength is important is because upper body strength helps distribute the force throughout the body instead of overloading the hip joint. You're able to hold yourself in a stable position.
So whether you're pushing or pulling or lifting or getting up from low positions like most chairs, strong arms and shoulders and back and core help reduce the excessive strain on the hip. And this really protects the hip implant, helps it to not move, and supports proper movement mechanics, which helps preserve the long-term joint health.
We're not only talking about the week and the months after your surgery. We're talking about the rest of your life.
Imagine getting a little bit stronger and using your upper body to do more things rather than relying on your legs and your hips. That is going to help protect you and help you move for a much longer time for your whole life.
Think about how many times you get up and down in one day. Now multiply that times the number of days in a year and then times the number of years you have left to live, which probably is a very long time. The more stress you can take off that hip by using the upper body, the easier it's going to be on your hip and your body and your movement and your confidence. Everything's going to improve.
The fifth reason why upper body strength is important is that it promotes a faster overall recovery. When I say faster overall recovery, I mean a faster overall initial recovery, that first period, those first couple weeks or months after you've had your hip surgery.
People with stronger upper bodies, and this is important, the bigger you are, like I'm a big guy, I need more upper body strength than someone half my size would need, but people with stronger upper bodies often progress more smoothly through rehab.
I've spoken about this with the surgeons and the physical therapists because they're able to maneuver more and easier during physical therapy. They're able to move their bodies, able to get up and down off tables, able to use the walking assistance devices easier because strength allows you to perform exercises with better control.
You can tolerate longer rehab sessions and stay active without fatigue. I know a lot of times people go through physical therapy or they go for simple walks and they're so exhausted and that's completely understandable. But if you have a base of upper body strength, your muscles are able to work and help you.
All of this movement and not being so fatigued leads to improved circulation, better movement quality, and a quicker return to normal daily activities.
If you have a setback or another injury, being able to use that upper body strength is really important. Since my hip replacements, I tore the meniscus in my knee. This is several years ago now. And I was able to get back to using crutches for a while. And my upper body strength really was helpful to be able to navigate that.
The sixth reason that upper body strength is important is that it leads to improved posture and alignment.
If you're sitting up straight and tall, you're standing up straight and tall, your alignment in your back and the alignment in your hips is better. With strong shoulders, strong back and core supporting the upright posture, this is very essential after a hip replacement because poor posture, you're leaning or you're not standing up straight, can place an uneven stress on the hip, the lower back, and the knees.
The last thing we want after a hip replacement surgery or trying to recover from a hip replacement surgery is to cause other problems in our body with poor posture.
Upper body strength helps us maintain alignment during standing, walking, sitting and all of these help to reduce pain and improve overall movement efficiency.
The seventh reason that upper body strength is important, and this might be the most important one, is because it leads to greater independence and confidence.
Upper body strength makes everyday tasks like carrying groceries or bags, opening doors or closing doors, pushing carts or lifting objects easier and safer. That independence, that ability to do things easier and safer reduces our fear, builds our confidence, and encourages people to stay active. Confidence in movement is a powerful factor in long-term recovery success.
I mentioned before that there are several different phases of the recovery. Not only are we recovering those first few days or those first few weeks or months, but think about your first year, your first five years, your first 10 years, your first 20 years.
If you think recovery ends at a month or two months or whenever you finish physical therapy, you might be in for quite a surprise because you probably will be doing some type of exercises a year, two years, 5 years, 10 years later because of that hip.
My approach is that the recovery never ends. It just changes phases, changes the purpose, changes the goal, changes how we do it over time. And having that upper body strength helps us continue on with those activities and those exercises for the long term.
Number eight, upper body strength is important because it supports a long-term active lifestyle. It promotes that whether it's swimming, cycling, walking, strength training. Many activities rely on upper body strength and engagement.
Strong arms and shoulders allow us hip replacement patients to stay active without overloading the hip. And this supports lifelong fitness, joint protection, and a higher quality of life.
Improving upper body strength is something we can all do regardless of the condition of your hip or our hip. Whether you're laid up in a chair or you can't walk or you're still in pain or you're still going through physical therapy, improving upper body strength gives us a sense of control. It empowers us. It improves our health.
It gets the ball rolling with fitness and can lead to more motivation to do more exercises. Essentially, working on upper body strength, maybe when we can't do anything else, can be the gateway to improving your overall health.
Because if we start doing some type of exercises, even small short ones, it can lead to something more. It could give us a better outlook that we're doing something positive for ourselves. And it removes that sense of helplessness.
Once we have that, we have momentum and can start doing other stuff, whether that's more upper body, whether that's returning to or engaging in a more active lifestyle when our hip does feel better and we can go out and be more active.
All right. So, I group those into eight different reasons why upper body strength is important. There's thousands. We could break it down even further, but let's stick with those eight for now.
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Third big section here that I'm going to address. We talked about what is upper body strength. We talked about why it's important, but what are the parts of the body that are included in upper body strength?
I break it down into basically six different parts of the body. I know there's some technical people out there. There might be some people who are in the biology field or the physiological field and they're saying, "No, Chris, it's not six parts. It's 3,546 parts."
My response to that is that's all great, but we're going to simplify. It's not 3,546 parts. That's too complicated. It's six parts. And let's work on six and not worry about some big massive number that is totally not manageable.
So, what parts of the body are included in upper body strength? My definition, six parts.
Number one, the arms, which includes the biceps, the upper arms, which includes the biceps, which are in front of the upper arm. This has to do with pulling or lifting. And then the triceps, which are the back of the upper arm, which has to do with pushing and straightening things out. Pushing things away like pushing a door, pushing a box, pushing anything.
Second part are the shoulders or the deltoids. They're basically the big round muscle on top of the shoulder. And there's the side, the front, the top, back. These have to do with lifting the arms, reaching overhead or stabilizing movements.
Part of that shoulder is also the rotator cuff muscles that helps you move your shoulder in a circular motion around and it keeps the shoulder joint stable and controlled.
Third part, the chest which is in the front kind of between the shoulders and it is the pectoral muscles. This has to do with pushing motion.
Consider this when you're getting up from a chair and maybe you're pushing on the back of the chair, you're pushing on the arms of the chair, you're pushing on the car to get out. Those are the chest muscles. Very helpful. Maybe you're pushing yourself out of bed. Very helpful.
Fourth area are the upper and midback area and these have to do with pulling movements and posture and balance support. There's a multitude of muscles back there. We're not going to get into the technical names for all of them. Just know that the upper part and mid part of your back is very important for pulling motions and posture and balance support.
The fifth area is the upper and deep core. Think about the area above and below your belly button. It's the abdominals and the spinal stabilizers. These help to support balance and protect the hips and the spine.
A lot of people, me included, have at times in our lives carried around too much weight and we have this big gut. Whether that's from a big beer belly or just from eating too much sweet things, there are numerous reasons. But if we don't have core muscles, it's very hard for us to stabilize and to move freely, to move easily, to maintain flexibility. So core muscles are very important.
The sixth part, and I think maybe the most overlooked part of the upper body, are the forearms and hand grip strength.
The hand is a very complex set of muscles. Many muscles go through your hand and these allow us, if we have strong hands, to grab things. Helps us to grab the walker, grab a railing, grab a cane and hold on to it. Same thing with our forearms.
The forearms, the muscles in our forearms feed into the muscles in our hands and those work together to make sure that we can grab things. And that is really the point of contact.
You could have the strongest back, arms, core, everything, but if you can't hold on to something because your hands are weak and your forearms are weak, it's all for not.
So I think forearms and hand grip strength are very important and are included in upper body strength.
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Now let's move on to the fourth overall topic here. How do you get or increase upper body strength?
Here I'll go through some sample movements. It's very difficult over a podcast episode to do this. So, if you want to go over to the YouTube channel and see some of the movements, that's great. Or you can simply listen and then you could do your own internet research about how to strengthen these particular areas of your body. And once you see them, they'll be pretty obvious.
All of these are incredibly basic. On a scale of 1 to 10, one being the easiest exercise or the most simple exercise and 10 being the most sophisticated heavy-duty bodybuilding exercise, super specific to hit those very deep muscles, this is not a 10 at all. This is on the one side because I would rather have you do something, improve somehow, than to overcomplicate things and have it lead to nothing.
Simplicity applied consistently is where success lives.
In these little brief exercises, the goal is not to transform you into Mr. or Mrs. Olympia or bodybuild. It's just to get you thinking or get you a little bit stronger today than you were yesterday.
And all of these things I'll show you. There's just a few quick exercises. These all can be done sitting or standed. Sitting or standing. You can use no weights, which is what I suggest. You can use exercise bands or later on maybe you can add some weights. It's up to you.
I think a simple easy motion is better than a heavy complicated one. Consistency is key.
So keep whatever exercises you're going to do to increase your upper body strength, keep them simple and try to do them two, three, four times a week and try to do them on both sides of your body. Like left side and right side. Don't just work on one side of your body.
I'm going to show you a couple things right now.
I said don't use any weights. You could use nothing. So I'm holding nothing in my hands. You can go through and do exercises with no weights.
You can use some type of resistance. Like right now, I'm holding up an exercise band. This is basically like a rubber band, but it's about 5 in wide. It could be as long as you want it. It could be 5 ft long. This one's about 3 feet long.
Your physical therapist should probably have thousands of yards or meters of this laying around and they just cut you a piece that you need. Or if you have to buy this in a store, a couple bucks probably.
What's great about these is that they're not weight. It's not heavy. You use the resistance of the band to help you grow in strength and not lifting up something heavy.
With a weight, you're using gravity as the resistance. With a band, you're using the strength or the resistance of the band as the piece of resistance to help you grow strength.
A different kind of band, this original one I'm holding up, does not have handles. You just have to hold on.
Another kind of band I'm holding up now is kind of like a jump rope, but it's much shorter than a jump rope and it has a handle on each side, so you can easily do your exercises holding on to the handle.
I have some little dumbbells here. These are 2 lbs. What is that? A little less than 1 kilogram everywhere else in the world except the US. I wouldn't even use these even though they're really small and light. I would go air. I would do nothing first. But if you're going to use weights eventually, not much weight at all.
If you don't have any weights like that, you can use things around the house like cans of soup. I'm holding up two cans right now. They're the same cans. And these are olives. My family eats a lot of olives. If you don't have weights and you want to use weights as some type of resistance and you don't want to go to the gym and you don't want to buy weights, just pick up what you have around the house. These are cans, just canned foods. Make sure they're the same weight, though.
Moving on to some items to help with forearm strength and grip strength.
I have a hand grip tool right here. What this is, it looks basically like a V with a handle on each end of the V with a spring in the middle. And you just squeeze. You squeeze it and the spring provides the resistance and that'll help increase your grip strength in your hand and your forearm strength.
These are pretty strong though. I've been doing this for a long time. I grew up playing baseball and we use this all the time every day. So, I'm just used to doing this.
Sometimes I'll drive around in my car and while I'm driving, I will be squeezing this with the hand I'm not driving with. I do that all the time.
Another thing you can use instead of that, and this is a little more gentle, is this little hand exercise ball that I'm holding up, and it's kind of like a jelly ball. It's a little bit smaller than the size of a tennis ball.
There are different densities of these type of ball. So, you can use the different densities to squeeze the ball. And you just squeeze as many reps as you want. The placement of the ball in your hand and the number of repetitions that you squeeze will determine the muscles that it hits in your hand and your forearm.
Very simple, very easy. Just squeeze the ball.
So that's the type of basic equipment that you can use that you might have laying around the house or they're very easy to go buy and just pick up if you want to use that kind of stuff.
But for the most part, you should have stuff around your house or from the physical therapist that will help you with these exercises.
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Okay. Now, I'll walk through basically some easy exercises and remember to do these on both sides of your body. Both sides of the body because that'll help you stay balanced.
The first one, super simple. Again, if you can look up some exercises online for this for these general muscle groups or get with your physical therapist for some upper body easy upper body exercises.
First one, seated shoulder press. If you want to work on your shoulders, you could literally just sit down, put your arms straight out, sideways, and just do circles. Do circles and you could go backwards with your hands, squeezing your upper back, the shoulder, the muscles in your upper back.
Pretty soon, after maybe five or 10 circles, you will start to feel that in your shoulders, in the back of your shoulders. Good exercise.
You could also go up and down, arms out to the side, up and down like you're flapping your wings. The slower the better. Very quickly, you're going to feel that burning sensation in your shoulders, and that's the muscles working.
If you have other aches and pains in your shoulders, go slow, go easy, no weight.
Let's not forget the tops of the shoulders. So from sitting good posture, sitting up, just push your arms straight up and down. Straight up and down. So your hands will hit the tops of your shoulders and just press up. Just press up. Nice and slow. That's for the shoulders.
You can press forward slowly. Press up and then lower. One or two sets. Maybe eight to 12 reps. You decide.
And why this helps? Because it makes it easier to push yourself up from chairs or beds or out of the car.
Second general exercise, the seated row. The seated row works on the upper back of your back on the upper part. It's good for the upper back. It's great for posture. It's great for pulling motions.
You can just sit in a chair and let your arm slightly bend over and with your elbows, take your elbows back. Try to put your elbows back behind you and you're going to feel your back squeeze together. As you pull your elbows back, you're going to be squeezing your shoulder blades.
Let's try not to hunch over. Let's keep the chest straight. Probably one or two sets, maybe 10 to 12 reps of these seated rows would be sufficient, but you decide.
Third exercise, chest press. These are basically like push-ups, but you don't have to be laying on the ground to do push-ups. You could be doing them against the wall. I call these wall push-ups.
These are great for the chest and the arms. To start building those muscles in the chest, go stand against the wall, facing the wall, move your feet about two feet back from the wall, and you can just lean up against the wall and press with your hands to push your upper body away from the wall.
If you need to still be in a chair, if you're still close to surgery time, you're going to have to skip this one, and that's totally fine.
As you're able to be more mobile, this is one of the things that you can start building excellent strength in your chest, in your upper body by doing a very simple movement.
You start doing push-ups against the wall and then slowly lower yourself over weeks, over months, over years down to the ground. Maybe go from the wall doing push-ups on the wall to maybe the kitchen counter down to a chair and then you can get down to the floor. Do them on your knees so you're not putting too much weight.
Again, your hip takes precedent. Don't do anything that is remotely going to injure that hip, but these are over the long term to help you build those muscles back up.
Fourth exercise are bicep curls. These help the muscles in the front of the biceps, in the front of the arms.
You could grab those cans I showed you earlier, or if you have weights, or if you want to just let your hands dangle, you could just pull your arms up and squeeze the bicep at the top. Down, and up. Slow and in control.
After about five of these, you're going to feel them. Even if you're used to doing with weights, if you do it with nothing and you go slow and squeeze, you're going to feel it.
Next exercise are tricep extensions. These are for the back of the upper arms.
For these, basically two different things you can do. You can lift your arms up straight over your head. Keep your elbows where they are. Dip your hands behind your head. Keep your elbows where they are. Go straight up and down with your hands, keeping your elbows where they are. Your hands move from behind your head to above your head.
Another way to do this is to be sitting down. You can lean over slightly and take your elbows, put them back behind you as far back as you can. Take your hands and just straighten out your arms and then come back and bend your elbows so that your hands are in front of you and then release back again.
Keep your elbows where they are. Put your hands back behind you and you'll start to feel the back of your muscles, your triceps start to burn a little bit.
Sixth exercise, this is a seedar seated core brace. This is for your midsection or a seated squeeze and these are for the core muscles.
You can sit tall. You can do a sitting or standing and gently tighten your stomach muscles. This is basically a sit-up without having to sit down and crunch up. And if we have the hip replacement, this is going to be a great way to address those muscles in your stomach without impacting your hips.
This is going to help for the core. Sit tall, gently tighten the stomach muscles, and hold for maybe five or 10 seconds. The more you do these, the more you're going to be able to squeeze and the tighter your midsection and your lower back are going to get.
You're not going to have to do many of these. If you're not used to doing sit-ups or you're not used to doing these type of squeezes, you're going to feel these. So maybe five to 10, just hold for a few seconds and then release.
This helps support your posture and protects the hip during movements.
So again, these are six exercises. Well, a seventh if you do the hand grips. I suggest doing the hand grips if you have that available to you.
These are all simple exercises that you can do anytime you want, fairly soon after the hip replacement. Check with your surgeon, check with your physical therapist, but as you get farther and farther away, whether that's maybe you're even before surgery, you can be doing these things, or maybe you're two months, three months, a year, two years, these things are still pretty important.
In simple terms, upper body strength helps you support yourself, move confidently, and protect your joints during everyday life.
Upper body strength is simple to develop. Just simply don't overcomplicate things. If you start searching on the internet, it's so easy to get buried in information. Pick a couple exercises and do them consistently and gently because they're going to go a long way.
Just go slow and before you know it, you'll be much stronger, balanced, and confident as you go about your daily life.
Pretty long episode here. We got into some details. I hope this was helpful.
Focus on that upper body strength while you're still going to be working on the rehab for the hip. But know that you can make some gains by doing some upper body exercise and really gain back your sense of control which will help you go a long way in your recovery not only soon after surgery but for years and years to come.
Thanks so much for tuning into The Hip Replacement Podcast and until next time, I wish you the best recovery possible.
