Road Cycling - Achilles surgery recovery

2 months ago I had the achilles tendon repaired and my question is are there any other members out there that had this type of injury or surgery?, your recovery time?any of your skills or style of riding change in the long term? Any replies are appreciated thanks

i have never had surgery on my foot, but i wish you a speedy recovery so you can be back in the saddle in no time :)

I am having Achilles Tendon surgery on Friday to repair a complete rupture, so I am starting to think about recovery.

Any advice or experience would be appreciated.

Living in the midwest...it is a bummer because I will lose most, if not all, of the cycling season.

DP

Not the achilles, but I broke my ankle three weeks ago, had surgery, and am recuperating now. Its slow going but I beleive things will progress much faster in the second and third phase of my recovery.

Best of luck in your recuperation.

Hey Doug, Sorry to hear of your misfortune, I had my surgery 5yrs. ago and I don't have any real discomfort, occassional ache and pain with it. I can't say that it has prohibited any of my riding that I like to do, my advice to you would be listen to the Dr. and work very hard when it comes time to rehab, but not too excess (trust me you will know if that happens). I think you have already faced your biggest test in realizing that you will miss a season of riding, which in the midwest is short I know I live in WI. The next spring after my season off I bought my 1st road bike and went about 2000 miles which was a big success I thought I was to become one of the town cruisers. I just celebrated my 1 year anniversary from having a hip resufacing surgery, similar to a hip replacement and from May of 2007 to November '07 I logged in 1500 miles on just one of my bikes, my point is that if I can do this anyone can, I don't know if I have answered any of your questions, If you have more specific questions I will try to answer them as best I can, but it can be very long days seeing all your friends out riding and hearing about the good times, but sooner than you think you will be back in the saddle. I wish you lots of success in your sugery and please let me know of your progress. Treky

I am coming up on the anniversary for my Achilles reattach on June 7, 2007. Riding was one of the first things my doctor and rehab tech allowed me to do. Back on the bike in September and I didn't miss a day of the ski season. Putting the ski boot on and off was a chore and I was not close to 100% but you do get there. It's a slow process and when they say it takes a year it takes a year. The biggest difficulty I had was relearning how to balance on my foot again. All those little muscle movements that were second nature are different and need to be relearned. Putting on a pair of pants will be different. It was discouraging for a while but my foot is better every day and now sometimes I forget about the injury when i'm walking. Oh and that weight you put on from sitting around will come back to bite you on the climbs. Here's a tip, stay away from the beer!!! Good luck with your surgury, keep active and push yourself a little
with your doctors supervision of course.

Karl

My best advice is to take it slow. I didn't, and wound up breaking it a second time. It has been many years now, and I have no lingering pain or discomfort, but my calf has never returned to its original size.

I broke my ankle March 1.

I can't get up off the saddle (well, I can, but only to coast). I can't put out power like I used too.

I can spin. As long as I remember that I'm not at 100%, things go ok. But every now and again, somebody has to win a race and goes flying by. Obviously I have to catch him, and then tell him about the bone chips working their way out of my ankle. Or I see the local fast group ride and try to catch the tail end. The next day, I can't walk right.

But I can spin. And it is great to be able to get back out on a bike.

I forgot, and should include: I saw a new therapist on Monday. She says I'll never run again, and will likely suffer severe arthritis for the rest of my life. I can't wait to prove her wrong, but it was disheartening.

i had a different tendon repair on my foot, cast for 3.5 months. this is 1.5 yrs later and i'm 100% now, my foot's just a little deformed. Missed a complete season, took about 1 yr to get to normal

2 months ago I had the achilles tendon repaired and my question is are there any other members out there that had this type of injury or surgery?, your recovery time?any of your skills or style of riding change in the long term? Any replies are appreciated thanks

Hi... i'm a physiotherapist and have dealt with these types of things in the past all with good results. Cycling (within moderation) is probably one of the best things for rehabilitating a surgically repaired achilles. Its tough to give you rigid guidelines because I don't know your previous level of fitness, what type of surgery was performed, how far into rehab you are (if you've had any) you are and your overall goals for the program.

But some really general advise is don't over do it early in the rehabilitation process. You will undoubtedly loose a lot of fitness and lower limb strength generally, however, this can all be recovered in the long run. The difficulty with these types of operations is that they can take months and months to recover even 80% of your original strength, so you've got a long road ahead of you. There are obvious risks to working to hard too early (tearing the attachment, infection etc..) as well as longer term issues such as poor biomechanical compensations and tendinopathy related issues... so take your time. However, considering you are 2 months post-op, your probably out of the danger area.

Simple program includes progression calf strengthening (your probably able to progress to various loading double leg calf raises but unlikely to be able to perform single leg/loaded single leg/pliometric type exercises correct?), stretching ++++, good post-exercise management (icing) and general movement (ie. give gentle spinning on a trainer/controlled environments) are key (prevent scar tissue build up which is a really huge issue and difficult to manage down the track)

Without looking at you, its hard to tell whether your technique is something that warrants changing. From a very general standpoint, there are a lot worse sports to be doing for a repair achilles tendon. If you tend to be a cycling who is very ankle dominant (ie. tend to have you toe pointed down during your downstroke instead of being parallel to the ground), then you may be incredibly calf dominant and predispose you to overloading your calf, however, as stated above, I haven't seen many, if any, achilles related issues with cyclist.

Please note that this advice is purely just my experiences on the matter. Without seeing you in person, I cannot steadfastly recommend in which direction your rehabilitation should progress. If you are having doubts, you really need to see a professional...

Hope this helps

Thank you all for taking the time to reply to my post. At this point all comments are helpful, as I don't even know all the questions to ask. To everyone's point about taking is slow...you all must have been talking with my wife! :-) I tend to want to push things and if 'some' is good 'a lot' must be better, however...with all your advice and that of my Dr. and friends that have gone thru similar things...I think I will go slow and recover well.

I have my surgery on Friday...and since I won't we riding...I'll post after I return to let you all know what I learn from the process!

DP

I am writing this with the hope to encourage someone that might have had this injury recently. I am one year post surgery for my ruptured Achilles and back on the bike doing fine. With Dr. and PT approval, I was back on my bike riding very easy Aug 27th of last year - after June 6th surgery.

I rode till is snowed, which was the week after Thanksgiving here in the midwest. Ended the year with 1,000 miles - 500 pre injury and 500 post surgery.

I have a big test coming up this weekend. Doing a hilly 106 mile ride Saturday, followed by an 88 mile hilly ride on Sunday. I am ready, but I am sure it will be a test.

Thanks to all that have encouraged me here and also for your advice.

DP