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[egocentrical]

Planning to get LON this year - either tibia or femur (yes i know femur is painful, but proportion wise and money wise would suit me so much better).

I also don't want to stop working out, i know that i'd be able to do a few weight training exercises as it involves laying down however with legs ... i don't want to be the guy that's all upper body strength and no legs although in my mind i know this is likely going to happen.

Has any body here done light training on their legs that isn't stretching so that overall you only lose a little muscle as opposed to a lot?

or do i have to suck it up and accept ill lose all my muscle in my legs.

[KrP1]

Bad choice. End

[egocentrical]

have you done LL though - can you actually vouch why?

[The Kaiser]

Then don't do this surgery, you will lose more than 40% of muscle, Good luck

[egocentrical]

I read on the old forums though  of some guy taking dumbbells to work out - not necessary legs more of do you think there is a way to minimize muscle loss?

[Bigpoppapump]

You can do minimal training upper body

During this surgery you will lose a good 30-40% of the muscle on your legs and it will take at least a year for your bones to harden for you to train legs properly again.

[The Kaiser]

I read on the old forums though  of some guy taking dumbbells to work out - not necessary legs more of do you think there is a way to minimize muscle loss?

No, you will lost it whatever you do, Guichet said try to build as much muscle as you can on your leg so this is the only way to minimize the impact. Unfortunately Your thigh will be thinner anyways. Good luck

[egocentrical]

Well I already have chicken legs so, I guess I'll just focus on legs more these upcoming months before I start my journey - as for upper body I have a bench and Dumb bells at home so aspect I can atleast keep up some maintenance - I wonder if the guy named "bodybuilder" on this forum has any input since he is quite open about being well built.

So if I did gain muscle and then lose it - is it easier to gain back due to being conditioned in training? I've heard that it's easier to gain back muscle after loss if you were muscular in the past. Any truth to this?

[Bigpoppapump]

Yes its easier to gain back in general but you need to realise it will be a long time before you can train your legs hard again. If you lengthen too much you will struggle full stop to get the muscle back.

I lost A LOT when I did mine.

[682]

Slight atrophy of muscle due to not engaging in muscular hypertrophy such as no longer going to the gym but still engaging in day to day activities such as walking is very different from atrophy and muscle wastage due to disability and complete inactivity of a muscle. The latter can take years to recover from.

[egocentrical]

I understand that it will be a long time before you can train hard - in not speaking in terms of carrying on gaining muscle while doing LL. I'm more looking into minimizing the effects or exploring options - such as walking with a walker/crutches to keep legs active, resistant bands - stretching etc. So if someone said "I noticed that if I walked 20 mins a day assisted this helped slow down muscle loss". Workout is a lose term in this circumstance.

[682]

Nutritionally sound diet with excess protein and amino acid supplementation, I wouldn't worry overly with upper body work as you will generally be using it to move. Weight-bearing as soon as humanly possible, walking as soon as humanly possible - do so as much as possible. Resistance bands, light endurance based movements for quadriceps, hamstrings and calves often alongside general PT. Conservative lengthening so less time to lose muscle.

[egocentrical]

Why would conservative lengthening help? I assumed if you could say lengthening at 2mm a day (just theroy) that you could theoretically finish sooner so lose less? I don't mind if I'm wrong, I just like preparing.

[682]

Conservative lengthening means less time before consolidation, less lengthy overall process so less atrophy and quicker to be back on your feet, weight bearing and stopping the process of atrophy earlier meaning it will be much quicker and easier to strengthen the muscles to a satisfactory standard as the atrophy will be less severe. Atrophy isn't linear. 60 days not using a muscle isn't twice as bad as not using it for 30 days, it's probably 10 times worse and so much more difficult and lengthy to get back from and compounds so the less time the better.

If you're wanting to lengthen 2MM a day, be my guest. Enjoy the excruitiating pain and don't be surprised if you never walk without a limp or run again because the damage you have done to your soft tissue which you can't fixed and is permanent (not reversible like muscle gain), gaining back muscle will be the last thing on your mind. I'd rather be conservative and lengthen at a more reasonable rate, you may feel that isn't optimal.

[egocentrical]

Makes sense, also I wasn't saying I was going to - I was just using it as example for fast lengthening over conservative lengthening.

[682]

Then don't do this surgery, you will lose more than 40% of muscle, Good luck

That's quite a specific amount. Any source to back that up? Do you mean temporarily through the procedure? If so, I agree. There's nothing to suggest that you can't gain back the same amount of muscle like before - some users here have proven that and some have even said that because of the stress on the muscle it has grown larger than before. Of course muscle size is completely different to athleticism or strength.

[The Kaiser]

Why would conservative lengthening help? I assumed if you could say lengthening at 2mm a day (just theroy) that you could theoretically finish sooner so lose less? I don't mind if I'm wrong, I just like preparing.

2 mm per day?! you will finish sooner but have a worse recovery, if we assume you recovered in the first place

[egocentrical]

Again - I never said that was my goal ... I said I was using it as an example for fast vs slow lengthening and which if supported would help with muscle loss ... I not once suggested or hinted this is what I plan to do?

[helloworld]

Planning to get LON this year - either tibia or femur (yes i know femur is painful, but proportion wise and money wise would suit me so much better).

I also don't want to stop working out, i know that i'd be able to do a few weight training exercises as it involves laying down however with legs ... i don't want to be the guy that's all upper body strength and no legs although in my mind i know this is likely going to happen.

Has any body here done light training on their legs that isn't stretching so that overall you only lose a little muscle as opposed to a lot?

or do i have to suck it up and accept ill lose all my muscle in my legs.

I asked the same question as you when I started lengthening!

There are dIfferent opinions:
Dr. Rozbruch seems to recommend almost no workout.
Dr. GUichet seems to recommend a lot of workout and early on.
Dr. Monegal recommends:
Bedtime first week, standup only after one week
Wheelchair until you have good bone formation (usually for the first 1-2 months)
Walk in between parallel bars and start cycling after after 2 weeks, but still in wheelchair
Walk in water after wounds are 100% healed after 3- 4 weeks
Any kind of exercise for upper body
Any kind of leg exercise where you are not putting weight on your body
Increase exercise depending on how much bone has formed
I have lengthened 5 cm so far ( will do one more cm) and have good bone formation. Thus I can do most muscle exercises and have almost gone back to original muscle strength.
So I was able to keep the muscle atrophy to a minimum! But I did spend a lot of time one stationary bike, and doing other leg exercises.

[egocentrical]

I think I will be doing what you are doing, I was wishing to purchase a exercise bike as once I go through with this I will be at home alot and in that time I may aswell try my best to do everything physically to the limit to improve myself - have you been doing upper body training? Does this in anyway translate into hurting below the waist? Eg bench press - you still have to position and balance yourself so there must be some transfer of weight - alongside seated upper body training - does the weighing down on the pelvic bone hurt more due to the tension of the muscle in the legs etc

[KrP1]

your body is going to need energy to recover from the lengthening, if you are training like a bodybuilder your body is going to spend a lot of energy and your recovery is going to be more difficult. I recomend you to allow your body to heal ,you have time to get your muscles back after your lengthening is done.
for lower body: if you were training seriously before the surgery, like doing more than 100kg squats for some reps , or press machine with 250kg , there is no way you are going to maintain the same or nearly the same size during lengthening, but muscles have memory and you could recover quickly after the most important thing ends "your lengthening and consolidation".

i personally recomend to do light exercises for your legs, with very low weight or bodyweight when your doctor allows you.
in my personal experience, i started to train the upper body seriously one month after the end of the lengthening.

[helloworld]

I think I will be doing what you are doing, I was wishing to purchase a exercise bike as once I go through with this I will be at home alot and in that time I may aswell try my best to do everything physically to the limit to improve myself - have you been doing upper body training? Does this in anyway translate into hurting below the waist? Eg bench press - you still have to position and balance yourself so there must be some transfer of weight - alongside seated upper body training - does the weighing down on the pelvic bone hurt more due to the tension of the muscle in the legs etc

Yes, I train upper body as well. Only thing that you cannot do is use dumbbells while standing, as this would put more weight on your legs.

There is more energy needed for fracture healing. So if you exercise as well you do need more calories, meaning you need to eat more.

I think I must be at around 6% body fat now, because I was not consuming enough calories to replace by body's need.

[egocentrical]

In no way am I a bodybuilder - i weight 54.2kg I'm super skinny, so the weight in training with is already light to begin with - its that I know in skinny and don't want to ideally become skinner, I'm planning to digest around 2500-3000 calories a day and increase this during lengthening as needed while doing light weight upper body training and when possible, walking and cycling with light weight resistant bands - seem reasonable?

[helloworld]

Seems reasonable!
I weight 30 kg more than you, and that is why I have to pay so much attention not to put all my weight on my legs.
But your weight makes things much easier!

[Whereintheworld?]

Just a suggestion-forget about working out until after lengthening, perhaps even consolidation.

I have absolutely no medical research to back me up, but it just seems as though your body's energy would be better spent trying to heal itself rather than on muscle gain/maintenance.

During lengthening I was nearly always either in bed or sitting down, ate about 500-1000 calories more a day than I did before surgery, and I actually lost a little bit of weight. What I'm getting at here is that your body is very 'busy' during this process and needs quite a bit of energy.

[helloworld]

You can search youtube for advice on fracture healing and the number 1 advice you will find is to exercise.

Workout does not burn many calories, 1 hour of weight training is maximum 400 calories but it does help in producing growth hormone, testoterone and other good stuff to get your bone healed.

Dr. Guichet recommend doing training fo at least 3 hours per day.
Dr. Monegal says around 2 hours per day of muscle workout and stretching is ideal.

[egocentrical]

When you say promotes healing - is this with upper body training or doing light excercises for the legs?

[jojo]

yes and buy tons of vitamins and stuff for strong bones.

[helloworld]

When you say promotes healing - is this with upper body training or doing light excercises for the legs?

Both.

[helloworld]

yes and buy tons of vitamins and stuff for strong bones.

I take:
Calcium plus vitamin E supplement
Zinc
Collagen plus Magnesium supplement
Creatin
Arginine, Lysine

[egocentrical]

What exercises do you recommend for legs then apart from walking and the more obvious stretching? I was thinking of light resistant bands and a pedaller that I can do at home potentially adding ankle weights if that was in the realm of possibility.