Whether you need surgery for an injury, something health-related, or even cosmetic procedures, it’s understandable that you’re going to want life to go back to normal as soon as the surgery and the recovery process is over. Everyone knows that it’s going to take a lot of time to feel normal and probably even look normal again.
But with that said, exercising is something that a lot of people do, even though it’s not exactly the smartest or safest thing to be done directly after recovering from surgery. But with that said, even once you get the OK from your doctor to go about your normal routine and back into exercise, it’s still strongly recommended that you keep things slow and less intense for a little while longer.
Here are some helpful tips for getting back into exercising right after having surgery.
Keep Active
For the most part, you should not exercise unless your doctor tells you to. Some surgeries may not be so bad, therefore, your doctor may allow you to exercise, while others, not to much. All surgeries are different, so they can be treated differently. But make sure you talk to your doctor before you do any exercise, regardless of how light it is.
So, if you’re in the recovery process from surgery, but even from an injury or illness, there are ways to keep active without having to do anything extreme. This doesn’t mean that you can lift weights after breast implants, but it does mean something light and easy, such as walking.
So, for starters, if you have a leg surgery, you could do some exercises that don’t involve your leg muscles what so ever. There are plenty of exercises where you can sit or even just lay down. This can include the bicep curl, some triceps presses, dumbbell exercises, and plenty of others. It’s just really going to depend on where you’re trying to recover your body.
But why focus on muscle groups that aren’t injured or getting recovery, you can still get yourself feeling food in fit. It’s understandable that you don’t want to lose any gains or lose any process of what you work hard for.
Staying active doesn’t mean you need to lift heavy weight, do a bunch of cardio, staying active just means staying active, having some exercises. Just remember, when it comes to exercising, there truly isn’t some “one size fits all” so it’s best to figure out what is working best for you.
Ease into the Cardio
After you got the OK from your doctor, you can usually then begin some light exercises, but of course, this is going to depend on where you’re recovering at. Cardio doesn’t immediately mean that you need to use a StairMaster or do some running. Instead, this can even include some walking. Just make sure that what you’re doing has a low impact.
You want to get yourself to feel stronger, feel better, you don’t want to prolong your recovery process because you went too hard during exercise. Just slowly ease into it, such as walking, changing your pace, and maybe then using something like a stationary bike.
Get Back into Your Old Routine Slowly
So, when it comes to getting right back into your old routine, this could be something that may take weeks or even months to get into. Of course, this isn’t ideal, but it all really just depends on what the surgery was that you had. You might want to do some great outdoor activities to help get yourself back into the swing of things.
But of course, before you can do anything fun, exciting, or even heavy on the body, you’ll need to get a doctor’s approval first. Whether you’re a runner, dancer, cyclist, or whatever, you’ll need to consult with your doctor first about the level of activity you can and what you should handle.
Low Impact Exercise
You’re going to want to try to make everything as low impact as possible. For some surgeries, especially involving the muscles, it can take anywhere from 45 days to 90 days in order to have the pain and swelling completely gone. So, maybe you use to run 2 miles a day before the surgery, then it’s best to cut it down and slowly get back to that pace.
Listen to Your Body
Plus, you’re going to want to constantly listen to your body. While it may be so tempting to tell yourself to just feel the burn and to embrace it, this is definitely not the best way to go about it.
When it comes to recovering from surgery, you certainly do not want to feel the burn as this could lead to something dangerous. This is not the time to go that extra mile and push yourself. Instead, look into increasing your effort no more than 25% weekly until you can fully go back into your regular workout.
Mental Recovery
This is so important. While yes, when it comes to surgery recovery, there is mental recovery too, such as going outside and being active; you need to keep in mind that physical recovery needs to come first. So in general, make sure that you’re easing yourself back into exercising, you shouldn’t look into training for races or anything just yet. Something like that is going to take quite a bit of time!
Overall, when it comes to recovering from surgery, it’s a very serious matter and this is something that needs to be treated as much. You don’t want to risk making things worse on yourself. Instead, give yourself time to recover, it is going to be the best way to preserve what progress that you have made for yourself.
By taking it slowly and regularly talking to your doctor about this, this is the best you can do. Yes, it’s understandable that your body craves to workout, and it wants to have the blood pumping again. However, this isn’t something that you should immediately do. Be kind to yourself, and be kind to your body and remember that you’ll be back to normal in no time.
