Weeks 1–3
Pain
Protect the joint, get the swelling down.
Gentle, guided movement and swelling management protect the new joint while restoring safe basic mobility, starting in your first sessions.
What We Treat
Hip Replacement Surgery treatment in Cherry Hill & Burlington.
The surgery is done. Now comes the real work: walking without a limp, taking the stairs without thinking twice, getting your independence back. It’s achievable on a real timeline, and it starts with a cause-first evaluation, not a guess.
Sound Familiar?
Does this sound like you?
- Still leaning on a walker or cane weeks after you expected to be past it
- A limp that shows up the moment you get tired
- Stairs still feel like a two-footed, one-at-a-time production
- Swelling around the new joint that flares up after any real activity
- Nervous about putting full weight on the new hip, even though you were cleared
- Missing the independence of getting in and out of a car without thinking about it
Two or more? Keep reading.
Why It Happens
Surgery fixes the joint. Rehab is what teaches you to trust it again.
A hip replacement resurfaces the joint, but it doesn’t automatically restore the strength, motion, or balance you lost in the months, or years, of favoring that hip before surgery. The muscles around it are often deconditioned, your walking pattern has usually adapted around the old pain, and your confidence in the joint takes time to rebuild too.
A cause-first evaluation, one-on-one with a licensed therapist, maps exactly where you’re at after surgery: your range of motion, your strength, your gait. That’s the difference between healing on your own and getting back to stairs, driving, and standing up without thinking about it, on a real timeline.
The Honest Truth
Waiting after surgery doesn’t protect the new joint. It lets everything around it get weaker.
If you keep waiting
- Your walking pattern stays guarded, so you keep favoring the joint long after you need to
- The muscles around the new hip stay deconditioned, so stairs and getting up stay harder than they should
- You lose confidence in the joint the longer you avoid trusting it with full weight
If you start this week
- You get a clear picture of exactly where your strength, motion, and gait stand right now
- Guided, surgeon-cleared rehab rebuilds strength and confidence at the right pace for you
- You get a plan with an endpoint: walking, stairs, and standing up without a second thought
Nobody regrets starting too early. Every week, someone in our clinic says they regret waiting.
How We Fix It
The same four phases. Built for your recovery.
Every plan has an endpoint. Here’s what the four phases look like after a hip replacement.
Weeks 3–8
Prime
Get your motion and your walk back.
Targeted mobility and gait training retrain a normal walking pattern instead of the guarded one you built up before surgery.
Weeks 8–16
Perform
Build the strength to trust the new joint.
Progressive strengthening around the hip rebuilds the muscle that weakened while you were favoring the old one.
Months 4–6
Prevent
Stairs, standing, independence, on your terms.
Real-world testing on stairs, uneven ground, and longer walks confirms you’re steady before you’re cleared, not just told you’re “healed.”
A great team of physical therapists, focused on the patient and genuinely invested in your progress.
Shared by K Rod · Hip Replacement Surgery
November: first steps after hip replacement surgery, walker required
April: standing and moving independently again
Hip Replacement Surgery
5 months
Questions, Answered
What people ask before booking after hip replacement surgery.
Most surgeons want rehab started within days of surgery, sometimes before you even leave the hospital. The sooner guided movement begins, the less scar tissue and stiffness build up around the new joint. We coordinate with your surgeon’s protocol so nothing you do here conflicts with your precautions.
Within your surgeon’s cleared limits, no, appropriate weight-bearing actually speeds recovery rather than slowing it. Staying too guarded for too long is what tends to cause problems, weak muscles and a lingering limp. We progress your loading carefully, one-on-one with a licensed therapist, so you build trust in the joint at the right pace.
Hip replacement rehab is a longer plan than most, and that’s expected, not a setback. You’ll move through all four phases, Pain, Prime, Perform, and Prevent, one-on-one with a licensed therapist every visit, typically over four to six months. Either way, you get a plan with an endpoint: you’ll always know which phase you’re in and what’s left, not an open-ended string of appointments.
Book Your Visit
Ready when you are.
Request a time and a real person calls you back, usually within two business hours. No phone tree. No ‘someone will reach out.’ Just a plan.
- Hours Mon–Thu 8am–7pm, Fri 8am–2pm
- Prefer to talk now? Call either office. Cherry Hill 856-424-0993 Burlington 609-880-0880
- Same-week appointments available
5.0 · 607 Google reviews
Typical response: under 2 business hours
Step 1 of 6
Request sent.
That’s the hard part done. We’ll call during business hours to lock in your time. Most people are on the schedule same week.
Visit Us
Care this good, this close.
Specialized Physical Therapy – Cherry Hill
Specialized Physical Therapy – Burlington
- 11 Cadillac Road, Burlington, NJ 08016 (opens in a new tab)
- 609-880-0880
- Fax: 609-227-4423
- frontdesk@specializedphysicaltherapy.com
- Mon–Thu 8am–7pm, Fri 8am–2pm