Like a lot of our students, Johnny Rowland needed to take a break from his practice at HYA during our community’s recovery from Hurricane Helene. But his reason for the break was entirely different from most: in early October, Johnny had surgery to replace his right hip. The surgery was part of a journey that started more than two years ago with a hip injury he suffered on a backpacking trip, one he could not seem to heal and doctors didn’t know why.
“Finally last year I finally found out what had happened,” Johnny said. “Apparently I’ve had severe arthritis for awhile, a pretty significant portion of my adult life. On the backpacking trip I tore a muscle in my hip and between the arthritis and the labrum tear, I had to quit running and hiking.
“But for almost a year and a half, I had no idea what was wrong. I went for acupuncture, dry needling, physical therapy. I tried all these things and nothing worked. When I first heard that I had pretty bad arthritis, I was pretty stunned. Nobody wants to hear that but I was so thankful to have an answer. When they told me I had the option of getting a new hip, I was immediately like, absolutely.”
Johnny has been back practicing at HYA since he was cleared to return to yoga in January. If you come to classes in the morning, you probably see him in Flow classes, Flow & Restore or Blast. He super-charged his practice in February and has been taking two classes a day most days.
“I’m already doing poses that I haven’t been able to do for years,” he said. “And that’s just one month of being back, so I’m so excited to see what it looks like down the road.
“Just sitting cross-legged, I couldn’t do that before. Little stuff that a normal practitioner wouldn’t even think about is really significant for me. Getting up into crescent lunge without pain in my right leg. It used to be that Restore was the worst part of class for me because there’s a lot of focus on hips. I couldn’t do pigeon. I still don’t have a lot of mobility in my hips but I can tell it’s getting better every day.”
Johnny’s comeback parallels that of his workplace. He works at Zillicoah Brewery, which was devastated by Helene. But Zillicoah is rebuilding too, and Johnny hopes to be back on that job next month as well.
Read more about Johnny’s story:
HYA: How did you first get into yoga?
Johnny: I started going to yoga in college. I went to App State and I did it for one of my PE classes. I enjoyed it. I have done it on and off since then, but when I injured my leg, that’s when I started coming here and that’s when I dug into it. I had done a lot of yoga before Covid but that put a pretty big hold on it. I was doing it at home but I am not good at self-motivation so it didn’t last very long. I do a lot better in classes.
I’m a very avid hiker and runner. I thru-hiked the AT and the PCT. On average, when everything is normal I run about 25 miles a week. I went on a backpacking trip almost exactly two years ago and I was injured on that trip and I basically had to quit hiking and running. It took a couple months before I found HYA. I was having a really tough time. I’m a super active person. Without being active, I start to go crazy. I found HYA and I dug in pretty hard when I got here. It’s been a lifesaver. I don’t know what I would be doing without it.
HYA: How did your recovery from surgery go?
Johnny: I bounced back pretty quickly. Luckily I stayed pretty active leading up to the surgery which they said was a really big help. I think why older people have a more difficult time recovering is because they’re not staying active before the surgery and anybody who can be active leading up to the surgery is going to do much better. The funny thing is my mom had the exact same hip done a month before I did. Same procedure. And she actually had a better recovery than I did. I was kinda jealous. She made it look super easy and when mine didn’t go as smoothly, I was like, what am I doing wrong? Why is this lady doing better than me right now? People are surprised that I had one this young but it has made recovery significantly easier.
HYA: What is your ideal practice?
Johnny: My favorite combo is an Inferno and then a Flow and Restore, mixing a little bit of everything. But I also really love doing a Flow and then just a Restore class. It’s a really nice mix. Everything except Hot 26. I’ll go to anything else. It’s just not for me. Once I’m in savasana, that’s where my body wants to stay. I like starting my day with yoga and then you’re pretty much set for the day after that.
HYA: What else do you spend your time on?
Johnny: Now that I can walk again I try to go for a walk every day, a couple miles as part of my recovery. I’m a pretty avid reader. I play music. I work at the brewery, so I like to go out and have beers with friends. Hopefully I will start hiking again soon. I’m curious to see what the trails will be like this year. What’s going to be open and what will be available.
