If you’ve had a hip replacement and still don’t feel quite like yourself – stronger, steadier, more confident in your body – you’re not alone.
And if you’ve thought about doing something to change that, but quietly talked yourself out of it, you’re not alone in that either.
In 40 years of teaching movement, and working specifically with women through hip replacement recovery, I’ve heard the same doubts again and again. The same secret beliefs that keep women stuck at exactly the stage where the right support would make all the difference.
These aren’t silly worries. They feel completely real – because they sound so reasonable.
But not one of them is quite true.
I built something in direct response to these exact seven doubts. Not a generic answer to hip replacement recovery, but a direct response to the specific fears and beliefs I kept hearing, one woman at a time, over and over again. More on that at the end.
Here are the seven hip replacement myths I hear most often – and why I’d respectfully like to challenge every single one.
Jump to:
Myth 1: “Once physiotherapy ends, there’s nothing more I can do”
Myth 2: “You need to be tech-savvy to follow an online programme”
Myth 3: “Online exercise after hip replacement is risky”
Myth 4: “If it hasn’t worked before, it won’t work now”
Myth 5: “Everyone else will be fitter and further ahead – I won’t be able to keep up”
Myth 6: “Spending more money on recovery is just throwing good money after bad”
Myth 7: “You must be fit to start a programme”
Myth 1: “Once physiotherapy ends, there’s nothing more I can do”
Physiotherapy is brilliant – but it was never designed to take you all the way to fully recovered. It was designed to get you safe. And safe and confident are two very different things.
Here’s what nobody tells you. Physiotherapy has a finishing line, and that finishing line isn’t the same as fully recovered. It’s the point at which you’re safe to manage on your own – not the point at which you feel strong, steady and confident in your body again.
That gap – between safe and confident – is where most women get stuck. Not because they’ve done anything wrong. But because nobody has told them what comes next.
That gap is exactly what the right kind of ongoing support is designed to address. Not to replace physiotherapy – but to pick up where it left off.
Myth 2: “You need to be tech-savvy to follow an online programme”
You don’t need to be tech-savvy to follow the right kind of online programme – and here’s why. I’m nearing 70 myself, and every woman I’ve worked with throughout my 40-year career has been in her 50s, 60s and beyond. I understand technology anxiety because I see it in my friends and peers every day – the wariness around a new TV remote, the hesitation before clicking a link in an email in case it’s a scam, the dread of getting online banking wrong. Even running my own training academy and building an active social media following, I’ve watched that fear up close for decades. For a lot of women, ‘online’ has also come to mean Zoom specifically – the awkward video box, fumbling for the link, staring at someone’s bookshelf wondering if they arranged it on purpose. It wasn’t exactly inspiring.
The right kind of online programme has nothing in common with that experience. There are no screens to be seen on, no technology to wrestle with, no pressure to show up at a set time. Everything is available whenever you’re ready – on your phone, tablet or laptop, in your own home, at a time that suits you.
If you can watch a video, you can follow a session. That’s genuinely all it takes. And if you do get stuck, help is always there – you won’t be left to figure it out on your own.
Myth 3: “Online exercise after hip replacement is risky”
Online exercise after hip replacement is only risky if it’s the wrong kind of exercise – and the right kind exists.
Based on NHS guidelines, the way I teach is built around a principle I call Challenge versus Struggle. It’s one of Joseph Pilates’ principles, which focuses on keeping a balance between a challenge and a struggle. Every movement is taught with clear guidance on what you should feel, what you shouldn’t feel, and when to stop. There’s no guessing, no pushing through discomfort, and no pressure to do more than your body is ready for.
You’re not reckless. You’ve been through surgery, you’ve worked hard to get where you are, and the last thing you want is to undo any of that.
If this is a worry that lingers for you, I’ve written more on this in Is It Safe to Exercise Home Alone Online?
The way I teach makes this possible. Over 40 years, I’ve deconstructed and refined traditional exercise instruction through careful observation and trial and error, rather than simply accepting it as given – and the women I’ve worked with have told me again and again that they’ve never experienced anything quite like it. I get you to try a movement one way, notice how it feels, then try it a different way – my way – and feel the difference for yourself. You draw your own conclusions rather than taking my word for it. It also means that when I’m asking you to let go of a long-held fitness habit or instruction, it never feels like I’m dictating – it feels like something you’ve discovered for yourself.
In over 40 years of teaching movement, I’ve never met a woman who was too careful. But I’ve met plenty who wished someone had told them earlier that slow and precise is always more effective than fast and forceful.
Myth 4: “If it hasn’t worked before, it won’t work now”
If something hasn’t worked before, it almost certainly wasn’t designed for where you actually are in your recovery – right now.
Past experience is a powerful thing – and if you’ve tried following along with generic exercise classes or videos and it hasn’t quite delivered what you hoped for, it’s completely understandable to wonder why this would be any different.
But here’s what I’ve learned in 40 years of teaching movement. Failed attempts rarely mean the person failed. They usually mean the approach wasn’t right.
Generic exercise – however well-intentioned – is built on a follow-my-leader model. Copy what you see, keep up with the pace, hope for the best. It doesn’t account for where you specifically are in your recovery, the muscles that need rebuilding, the movements that need relearning, or the alignment that surgery and months of compensation have knocked out of kilter.
The right approach works differently. Every session is built around understanding your movement – not just copying it. Because when your alignment is right and you understand what you’re doing and why, the results are completely different.
Myth 5: “Everyone else will be fitter and further ahead – I won’t be able to keep up”
There’s no one to keep up with in the right kind of programme – so this fear, understandable as it is, doesn’t actually apply.
What if there was a programme where there was no group moving in unison, no instructor counting you down, no one watching and no one judging whether or not you’re keeping up? Where every woman works at her own pace, in her own home, on her own terms. Where nobody knows or cares whether you did it yesterday or last week. Where the only person you’re competing with is the version of yourself who wasn’t quite sure she could.
The women I work with are at every stage of recovery – some are just weeks post-surgery, others are years on and still rebuilding. What they have in common isn’t where they are – it’s that they’ve decided they’re ready to do something about it.
There is no ahead and behind. There’s only where you are today, and where you want to get to. And that’s exactly what we work with.
Myth 6: “Spending more money on recovery is just throwing good money after bad”
Spending more money is only throwing good money after bad if what you’re spending it on is the wrong thing.
If you’ve spent money on your recovery before and still don’t feel the way you hoped, this is a completely reasonable conclusion to reach. Why would this be any different?
The answer comes back to something I’ve already mentioned – the right approach at the right time changes everything.
Most of the money women spend on recovery goes on things that were never designed for every stage of recovery – general fitness classes, well-meaning but generic programmes, or treatments that address the symptom rather than the cause.
A programme designed for this stage is different – built specifically for women at every stage of hip replacement recovery, around principles that address alignment, strength, steadiness and confidence in the right order. Not a generic programme dressed up in different packaging.
At £25 a month with no contract, the cost is clear. The value – feeling strong, steady and confident in your own body again – far exceeds it.
Myth 7: “You must be fit to start a programme”
You don’t need to be fit to start – that’s actually the point. You just need to be ready to begin.
The right approach isn’t a fitness class – there’s no complicated choreography, no directional changes, no fear of bumping into the person next to you. There are no star jumps, burpees or heavy weights. It’s gentle yet highly effective – purposeful movement designed specifically for women at every stage of hip replacement recovery. Less is more is my mantra, and it starts exactly where you are, not where someone else thinks you should be.
The fact that you’re reading this suggests you’re already ready.
If any of this sounds familiar…
Everything above is drawn from what I built in direct response to these exact seven doubts. It’s called BRIO!
Most of the women who join BRIO! have talked themselves out of it at least once before they finally said yes.
BRIO! Online Mobility & Movement Hub is a warm, supportive community of women at every stage of hip replacement recovery, with expert-led movement sessions you can follow from home, at your own pace, with no pressure to keep up.
£25 a month, no contract, cancel anytime. Your membership starts the day you join – so there’s never a wrong time to begin.
You can find out more, or join BRIO! today, at briofitness.co.uk.
My clients often tell me they take BRIO! on holiday with them, to keep their momentum going wherever they are. Only last week, one of them had me on her screen from a sunny terrace in Greece, and sent me a Facebook message to tell me so – proof that BRIO! travels exactly as well as she does.