Hello,
I am 41 years old and having been training in martial arts and have done barbell training since I was a teenager. Around 36, I noticed my right hip became more and more stiff then by 38 due to bone spurs began to become painful to the point my deadlift and squat suffered as it lost strength in my hip muscles and could not longer get into proper position to do either lift. A little before my 40th birthday I had a total hip replacement on that hip which has worked wonders. However the past 17 months have been a lot of hard work getting back to beating my best lifts which I am still off in my squat by around 50lbs or so and about 40lbs vs my all time deadlift max. Over the past couple weeks my left hip has begun to hurt more and more doing squats and for the past week has been swollen and painful while walking, sitting, etc. So I have backed off training for now. However I do not ever want to stop squatting or deadlifting as I enjoy these lifts far too much. My ortho doctor(Dr. Jason Snibbe) did an amazing job on my right hip but warned me that due to my impingement and hip anatomy not not squat below parallel and that if I do heavy squats eventually I will have the same thing happen to my left hip. It seems like I am wearing down the labrum. In the meantime is it possible to keep squatting and prolong the eventual hip replacement as long as possible while still going heavy? Or am I left with one of 2 choices: Keep squatting and last as long as I can or stop squatting(and possibly doing deadlifts) to put off the degeneration as long as possible.
Thank you for your feedback,
James