Episode #42: Dr. Eric Helms, PhD., CSCS | Gaining Strength After Bilateral FAI & Hip Labral Repair Surgery

Episode #42: Dr. Eric Helms, PhD., CSCS | Gaining Strength After Bilateral FAI & Hip Labral Repair Surgery

Dr. Eric Helms, PhD., CSCS of 3D Muscle Journey and barbell athlete shares his path from FAI to hip labral repair and femoral acetabular impingement (FAI) surgery in both hips at the same time. After years of battling the idea of surgery and failed attempts to continue getting stronger, Eric decided to have surgery on both hips due to pain and repeated setbacks in training. 

FOR MANY OF US, HAVING SURGERY IS A MAJOR DECISION. WE QUESTION: 

  • What surgeon will perform the procedure? 

  • When should you do it? 

  • What will the recovery look like? 

  • How long will it take to be back to normal? 

  • What will normal look like? 

  • Do the risks outweigh the rewards? 

There are so many questions, fears, and doubts that could go through our heads. 

The reality of it is that surgery isn’t a quick fix but when it’s the correct treatment, it can address symptoms and improve function, sports performance, and quality of life. Even in that case, there is still a lot of work to be done throughout the rehab process but it is possible to recover, return to barbell training, AND get stronger than you were before.

Listen to this episode of the PRS Podcast to learn about Eric’s never-before-shared full journey of FAI with labral tears. He shares his journey from training with pain and stalled progress, to a bilateral hip surgery and significant recovery, back to getting under the bar and finally hitting PRs instead of roadblocks in his training. 

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GET IN TOUCH WITH THE SHOW!

Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC, SSC: [00:00:00] So welcome to the Progressive Rehab & Strength podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Rori Alter Head Clinical coach here at Progressive Rehab & Strength with my lovely co-host, as usual, Dr. Alyssa Haveson. And today we are here with Eric Helms. A You're not a professor. You're just you're researching, doing research, correct?

Dr. Eric Helms, Ph.D., CSCS: [00:00:19] Yeah, I'm a research fellow, so I'm not technically of the rank of professor in the hierarchy of academia.

Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC, SSC: [00:00:26] And bodybuilder powerlifter, weightlifter and prominent figure here in the strength realm. And we're not actually going down the usual rabbit hole that you go down on podcasts and interviews. We're going to talk to you about an injury and surgery that you had. So why don't you just introduce yourself? Tell us a little bit about yourself, your athletic career, your professional career, and what led you into the strength sports and bodybuilding, powerlifting and all that kind of stuff. And then we'll kind of dive into your surgery and injury history.

Dr. Eric Helms, PhD, CSCS: [00:01:02] Absolutely. And first, just the honor to be talked to about this. Hopefully this is helpful to people. Um, what led me into strength sports, I started lifting in 2004. Um, and my personality is such that, I kind of put my everything into the thing I'm doing in any given time. So very quickly it became, you know, probably become a personal trainer. I wonder if I can compete in this. Uh, let me see if I can read about this. Let me see if I can study this. And to say I was bit by the iron bug is probably a gross exaggeration. It's more like I was converted by the Borg. If you're a Star Trek fan of of lifting and I started to become lifting and part of the hive mind. So I did my first powerlifting meet an unsanctioned push pull in zero six, and I started competing in natural bodybuilding in zero seven. First got into weightlifting when I decided that I wanted to pursue this intellectually as an academic. In 2011, before I came out to where I live now in New Zealand, because I wanted to have a better, more complete, I guess you could say, understanding of strength and conditioning, since that's technically what my PhD was in. UAnd found that was pretty cool too. Terrible at it, but it was pretty cool. And even got the opportunity to dabble a bit with strongman training in I think that was 2019 where I really gave it a fair shake and did actually some competitions. Um, so I've competed in something like. More than 20 powerlifting and weightlifting meets most of those being powerlifting meets. I've done three. For four seasons of competitive bodybuilding, doing think double digit numbers of shows and a couple of strongman competitions. So I very much still see myself as an athlete and enjoy at the core center everything I do, even though I'm a sports scientist, I'm a coach, I'm a consultant, I'm a science communicator. As it relates to this, the iron game and at the core of it all, I'm still an athlete myself and I just love lifting. So it's kind of how I express myself. It's my intellectual, artistic, dare I say, spiritual expression. So it's a big deal for me.

Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC, SSC: [00:03:34] I agree with all spiritual thing, you know, not going to share my actual raised religion, but I feel like, you know. For my husband and I who come from different religious backgrounds we meet. This is our religion, you know, like, you know, this is where we meet. And definitely it's not an understatement. You know, it does become a religion for a lot of people. So.

Dr. Eric Helms, PhD, CSCS: [00:03:59] 100%. And I think people who get that know aren't coming from. And if you don't, that's fine. It probably just means you have a better relationship with lifting than I do. So that's kind of my big picture background. If there's, if there's more detail you think people would benefit from hearing, I'd be happy to give it on any specific topic.

Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC, SSC: [00:04:19] No, I mean I think that that does the one thing I actually do want to ask you before. So in 2004, when you got into this kind of stuff, what were you doing before that? Like, what was your athletic history like in elementary school, high school, college, all that kind of stuff?

Dr. Eric Helms, PhD, CSCS: [00:04:37] Good question. Yeah. So I was in the Air Force when I started lifting. So as a kid, I went, you know, through school and out of high school. I enlisted in the Air Force. So I was reasonably active. I nothing crazy, man. I love video games too. But I ran track in high school. Um, I did martial arts growing up until I was 12, 12 or 13, 14. The thing that I probably put the most effort and time into in a more structured environment was a 400 meter runner in high school. So I did that from freshman to senior year. And then in the Air Force they keep you reasonably active. You have to do running and push ups and sit ups. And then in '04, I still had a year left in the Air Force and that's when I started lifting.

Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC, SSC: [00:05:30] Okay. So how did you get into well, you explained that in terms of your career and and diving into the the academic aspect of it. But so tell us a little bit about, you know, the injury that you experienced that led into surgery. And had you ever experienced injuries? I mean, I'm sure you've had, you know, obviously like we can't run away from injuries, so I'm sure it wasn't your first injury, but this was pretty significant injury. So tell us a little bit about that.

Dr. Eric Helms, PhD, CSCS: [00:06:02] Yeah. So my hip injury was my only injury that resulted in surgery. So it's unique in that way, but it was not my first injury. I had had pretty significant back injuries that just put me in a position where I was in pain and limited in what I could do for, oh geez, like almost a full year. That was in oh seven and it recurred a few times, but never that bad when it first happened. In '09I tore my left hamstring during deadlifts during contest prep, so I was also doing like it's during the HIIT craze where we thought like we were massive advantage from doing like these 15 second sprints versus too slow, you know, cardio. And the main advantage is that you're more likely to tear your hamstring when you do deadlifts the next day. 

Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC, SSC: [00:06:54] Let's not do cardio.

Dr. Eric Helms, PhD, CSCS: [00:06:56] Exactly. No, cardio is terrible for you. You will tear your hamstring every time. No, just kidding. But so, yeah, let's see. I tore my hamstring in '09 and I'd had some little, you know, tendinitis or the muscle strains that are part and parcel of lifting for any more than a few years. But 2011 actually is when I first got the hint of this called an injury. But I think there is probably a, I want to say degenerative, but that almost sounds like it's like arthritis or something, but it's the continued formation of morphology in my hips that led to needing surgery and possibly multiple tears. So 2011, I felt a little pain in one of my hips while squatting after I'd finished the bodybuilding season. I didn't hear any noise this time, but it was kind of like this, this little ouchie at the bottom of the squat and it felt like it was right where my my TFL is. At the time I didn't think it could be something internal. I was just like thought that I strained my and I was like, I don't know if that's a thing. Like people strain their, um. And I just noticed that I lost a little bit of range in my squat on my right side and in my hip. But it wasn't so much that I couldn't hit depth and ultimately it was not a range of motion I needed to access. So I kind of just didn't care. It didn't bother me on hack squat, leg press any of my body movements, and it didn't bother me on squats and I just kind of had to take some time off. But it got better and I was back to it. But I did notice from that point on I'd always had slightly reduced range of motion on my right hip is 2011 is a long time ago. Um, and then it was pretty much not a problem until I started getting into Olympic weightlifting. Um, and like the person I just tend to be, I didn't want to not power lift while doing Olympic weightlifting, so I figured I would just train for both simultaneously. Um, so I was doing, you know, cleans snatches as well as heavy, low bar squats in the same week.


Dr. Eric Helms, PhD, CSCS: [00:09:13] And this seemed to just aggravate and then accelerate the issue that I noticed that wasn't really an issue in 2011. Um, so for the first time I was actually accessing a range that now was more of my end range of motion, at least on my right side. Um, and I noticed that that seemingly in combination with heavy low bar squats or then I was being in a greater hip angle was putting me in a position where my hips were not always happy with me. Um, and I want to say it was in 2000. 13, where I had a similar feeling to that 2011 moment, but actually heard something or felt something. It's tough to say when it's inside your own body whether you actually heard it or not. And it felt like a little like pop in my hip in a deep position. And basically the same thing happened as last time, but the range of motion decreased even more. And I also decided that I could train around it and train through it, which in not even in retrospect at the time I knew was a bad idea. But I did it anyway because I was young and I had nationals coming up, I had Auckland champs coming up and then I had Commonwealth champs coming up because this was an era of powerlifting where I was actually not terrible relative to everyone else. So I could actually make the team for New Zealand. Um, then everyone got good, but, nonetheless had my glory days where I was an international competitor for one year, but my squat went from, I want to say, should I speak in pounds? Is that better for your listeners?