Professional triathlete Andrew Starykowicz (pronounced STARK-o-witz) has had quite a journey! In the first installment of his two-part post, he details his recovery from hip surgery – part of which was performed in the Performance Endless Pool® in his basement.
Every athlete gets injured – heck, everybody gets injured – and it is then we learn how important our health is. When you go from being able to swim 10,000 yards, bike 200 miles, and run 20 miles one weekend to not being able to get up and get a beer out of the fridge the next weekend, it is at that point that therapy devices become an integral part of life.
This is where my journey with Endless Pools® began. In the midst of training for absolute dominance at the 2014 IRONMAN World Championship in Kona, I was struggling with injuries. When I was healthy for any period of time, I was winning races. Come the end of the season, I had to withdraw midrace at Kona.
Getting the Bad News
It was a month after the season, when physical therapy was not improving my condition, that I learned that I had a bone spur on the head of my femur that was making Swiss cheese out of the laburum in my hip. This required a hip arthroscopy with Dr. Nho of Midwest Orthopaedics at Rush. It was the start of a long journey back.
I then realized that I would need to utilize tools that I had not used before to get healthy and stay healthy. In addition to my recovery, my wife and I were having a baby, so time was coming at a premium.
Immediately after surgery, I learned that this surgery’s comeback would be a lot longer than I had originally thought. No pushing off the walls swimming, kicking while swimming, running, any of that for 4 months. The doctors knew from therapy that I would push the envelope on whatever they said I could do, so they kept the lid on it. During this time I was able to get in the Endless Pool and get in pull-sets to maintain some fitness.
At this May's IRONMAN Texas, professional Triathlete Andrew Starykowicz started strong with a 48:51 swim. Just 18 months earlier, he'd had hip surgery that left him unable to train on dry land. He now credits the Performance Endless Pool in his basement with helping him get back on track quickly enough to earn praise (and shock) from his doctors.
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Active Recovery
At the four-month mark, the lid was opened a bit. I was able to resume normal swimming (still no pushing off the walls) and assisted running. In most situations this meant running with an Alter-G, but with access to the Endless Pools Underwater Treadmill, I started walking and eventually running a lot sooner without bearing my full weight.
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