Post Op Exercises After Hip Replacement: The Quiet Half

The safest post op exercises after hip replacement are the ones your surgeon and physiotherapist have already given you, and nothing on this page replaces a single one of them. This is not a rehab protocol. It is a very small awareness lesson from the Feldenkrais Method®, lying on your back, that you can add beside your prescribed program once your team says you may. Every movement in it is tiny, stays far away from standard hip precautions, and asks you to notice rather than to reach. If anything here is new to you, clear it with your surgeon or physio before you try it.

Why this road is so well traveled

Most people arrive at hip replacement through osteoarthritis, after years of a joint that gradually asked for more and more caution. It is a remarkably common story: about 528 million people worldwide were living with osteoarthritis in 2019 (WHO, 2023). Surgery gives many of them a hip that can finally bear weight without the old grinding ache, and the rehab that follows, guided by the surgical team and physiotherapist, rebuilds the strength and range that the years of guarding wore down. That clinical care leads the recovery. It sits first, and everything on this page is arranged around it, not the other way about.

The quieter half of recovery

There is a second, less discussed part of coming back from a hip replacement. For years before surgery, your whole self organized itself around a sore joint: how you stood, how you swung the leg, how you turned toward the kettle. The joint is new now, but those old patterns of bracing and favoring do not vanish on their own, which is one reason walking can still feel like something you have to think your way through even when the surgeon is delighted with the X rays. Rehab supplies the strength and the milestones. This lesson works on the other half: lying still and safe on your back, sensing how weight, breath, and tiny movements travel through you, so the new hip can be woven back into ordinary standing and walking rather than treated as a stranger. Our Feldypedia article on post surgery movement recovery explores this idea in more depth.

Keeping post op exercises after hip replacement conservative

Precautions are the frame around everything in early recovery, and they are not the same for everyone. After a posterior approach, many teams ask you to keep hip bend under a right angle, to keep the operated leg from travelling across the midline, and to avoid rolling that leg inward; other approaches come with a different list, and some surgeons use few formal precautions at all. Because of that variety, the honest advice is simple: follow the exact instructions your own surgeon and physiotherapist gave you, not a generic list from the internet, this page included.

The lesson above was built with a wide margin in mind. You stay on your back throughout. The hip is never asked to bend beyond a small comfortable amount, the legs never approach the midline, and there is no inward turning of the operated leg anywhere in it. The feet move a little, the pelvis rocks by millimetres, the head rolls gently, and the real work is attention. If even one of these movements seems to touch anything your team has restricted, leave it out and ask them first. Noticing is the point here, never range, and a version you only imagine still counts.

It also helps to know the moments that call for the phone rather than patience. New pain, heat, increasing swelling, fever, new calf pain, or any sense that the hip has shifted or given way are all reasons to stop and contact your surgical team straight away.

When and how to practice

Early on, bed is a perfectly good place for this lesson, and often a wiser one than the floor. Everyday transitions deserve the same unhurried care as the lesson itself: our guide on how to turn over in bed after hip replacement surgery walks through one of those moments within the usual precautions. Once your team is happy for you to add a few quiet minutes of this kind, a daily visit is plenty. Other approaches such as pool work or gentle strength training do a different job, rebuilding capacity in the tissues; this work is about the quality of attention you bring to movement, and the two can happily coexist. When you would like the same spirit in guided audio form, Feldy offers a 7 day free trial, and the lessons for this area live in our knee or hip program.

Common Questions about post op exercises after hip replacement (FAQ)

When is it safe to start post op exercises after hip replacement?

Only your surgical team can answer that for your hip, your approach, and your stage of healing. The lesson on this page is small enough that many people could do it in bed early on, but that is a judgment for your surgeon or physiotherapist, not for a web page. Describe the movements to them, or show them this page, and begin only once they say yes.

How does this fit with my physiotherapy program?

Your physio program is the engine of recovery: it restores strength and range and marks the milestones on the way back to normal life. This lesson is a listening layer that sits beside it, a few quiet minutes of noticing how you rest and breathe around the new joint. Do your prescribed exercises first, exactly as given, and treat this as something extra, never a substitute.

What should I avoid after a hip replacement?

Follow the precaution list your own team gave you, because it depends on your surgical approach. After a posterior approach, teams commonly advise keeping hip flexion under a right angle, keeping that leg from crossing the midline, and avoiding inward rotation of it, but other approaches come with different rules. Our guide to exercises to avoid after hip replacement covers the common patterns, and your team's word overrides anything written there.

How often can I do this lesson?

Once your team has cleared it, a few minutes daily is plenty, and some people enjoy it twice, perhaps morning and evening. It asks so little of the tissues that frequency is rarely the issue; the only rule is that it never displaces your prescribed rehab and never wanders past your precautions.

When should I call my surgical team?

Contact them promptly for new or worsening pain, heat or spreading redness around the wound, swelling that is clearly increasing, fever, new calf pain or calf swelling, or any moment where the hip seems to shift, clunk, or give way. When in doubt, call. A short conversation is always better than quiet worrying.

Can I do this in bed instead of on the floor?

Yes, and early in recovery bed is usually the wiser choice, since getting down to the floor and up again can itself brush against your precautions. Everything in the lesson works on a mattress. Save the floor for later, and only once your team agrees you are ready to get there and back comfortably.