week 52 · last reviewed 2026-06-12
Gluteus medius repair recovery: week 52
Clinical procedure: Gluteus medius/minimus (abductor) repair.
Typical, evidence-anchored estimate only. It is not medical advice, not a prediction for your body, and not a substitute for your surgeon or clinician.
what's typical at week 52
typical pain · week 52
Around week 52, the typical pain band sits at 2.6/10 (range 1.9–4.4). This week was measured directly in the cited cohort.
weeks 26–52
Weeks 26-52 · the slow second half
The second half of the first year is where the residual ache slowly gives way. At twelve months the large open-repair cohort averaged about 1.9 out of 10, while the more severe endoscopic cohorts were nearer 4.4 — the spread is real and set mostly by the starting tear. A survival analysis of recovery timing is the clearest summary here: half of patients reach a meaningful improvement by about six months, and half reach a genuinely acceptable symptom state by about eleven months. This is a slow operation to feel finished, even when function is already good.
It is also where the honest spread in outcomes shows. A systematic review found that somewhere between roughly 41 and 75 percent of patients reach what researchers call a patient-acceptable symptom state after endoscopic abductor repair. That is a good-to-excellent result for most, but a real minority do not get all the way there, and tendon and muscle quality at the time of surgery is the biggest reason why.
documented at this week
The pattern
The limp is usually the last thing to go
The Trendelenburg sign, the pelvic drop and limp of a weak abductor, resolves in most people over the first six months as strength returns. One mini-open cohort reported it falling from 71 percent of patients to none, and an endoscopic cohort reported it resolving in every hip by two years.
Coming up
Half reach an acceptable state by about a year
A survival analysis of recovery timing found that half of patients reach a meaningful improvement by about six months, and half reach a genuinely acceptable symptom state by about eleven months. By two years roughly two-thirds have reached that acceptable state.
Back to work
Return to recreation is usually gradual
In an open-repair series tracking sport, about 60 percent were back to a lighter activity within one month, another 26 percent by three months, and 14 percent only after six months. Around three quarters returned to at least one recreational activity overall, often shifting toward lower-impact options.
sources
What this page is built from
- Augmented open hip abductor repair with serial 3/6/12/24-month outcomes (Bucher/Ebert et al., n=110, 7-10 yr) prospective cohort · reliability 9/10
- Low-quality evidence supports surgery for gluteal tendon tears: systematic review with GRADE (Spencer/Fearon, 1,584 patients, 49 studies) systematic review (GRADE) · reliability 9/10
- Mini-open double-row gluteus medius repair, serial 6/12/24-month outcomes (Quinn et al., n=61) prospective cohort · reliability 8/10
- Endoscopic gluteus medius repair with selective gluteus maximus release, 6/12-month points (Chen et al. 2023, n=22) prospective cohort · reliability 8/10
- Time to MCID and PASS after gluteus medius/minimus repair: survival analysis (Maldonado/Domb et al., median MCID 5.7 mo / PASS 11.0 mo) retrospective cohort · reliability 7/10
- PASS achievement after endoscopic hip abductor repair: systematic review (Akhtar et al. 2024, 272 patients, 13 studies) systematic review · reliability 8/10
- Suture anchor vs transosseous gluteus medius repair: systematic review and meta-analysis (680 patients, 21 studies) meta-analysis · reliability 8/10
- Evidence-based rehabilitation protocol after hip abductor tendon repair: systematic review (Ebert et al. 2022, 17 studies) systematic review / protocol · reliability 8/10
- Recreational activity after open hip abductor repair: return-to-sport timing distribution (Navas et al. 2022) prospective cohort · reliability 7/10
Track your own week-by-week so a flare doesn't erase the months behind it.
Start a recovery logThis is a typical, evidence-anchored reading of gluteus medius repair recovery at week 52 — not medical advice, not a prediction for your body, and not a substitute for your surgeon or clinician.