Right after your surgery, your doctor will recommend physical activity such as walking. As you recover you should gradually increase the intensity of your physical activities until you have an exercise program incorporated into your daily activities and commit to exercising for life. The benefits for your health are uncountable. Exercising is one of the best habits a person can have for a healthy life.
If you are not experienced, we recommend that you join a gym where you can work with a coach to plan a program that is right for you helping you to reach your goals and to avoid injuries.
In our opinion resistance training programs are the most effective, you can begin to do these as soon as your doctor indicates to do so, which is usually 6 weeks after surgery. Resistance training can be done using your own body weight, resistance bands, or weights.
Exercise will help you in ways like the following:
- Resistance workouts help you lose weight faster by losing fat and building muscle at the same time. Building muscle accelerates your metabolism which will have you burning fat throughout the day even when you stop exercising.
- Exercise translates into practical abilities in your daily life. For example, doing squats and upper body exercises will make you strong so that you can sit and stand easily, and will allow you to carry heavier objects and safely avoid injuries.
- Resistance training is an easy way to begin working out and build cardio resistance. When you use your body weight or weights to exercise your heart beats faster and you begin to create cardio resistance for a stronger heart.
- You sleep better. Exercise is guaranteed to bring you a better quality of sleep. “We have solid evidence that exercise does, in fact, help you fall asleep more quickly and improves sleep quality,” says Charlene Gamaldo, M.D., medical director of Johns Hopkins Center of Sleep at Howard County General Hospital.
- It improves mental health. Mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, ADHD, and the like, are better handled when exercise is included in your daily routine. For example, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found that running for 15 minutes a day or walking for an hour reduces the risk of major depression by 26%. Coping with your mental health after surgery is important, and exercise is a great tool for it.
- You have a sharper memory. In a study done at the University of British Columbia, researchers found that regular aerobic exercise, the kind that gets your heart and your sweat glands pumping, appears to boost the size of the hippocampus, the brain area involved in verbal memory and learning.
- Your respiratory system will thank you for exercising and during these times, keeping your lungs healthy is especially important. When you exercise your heart and lungs will need to work more because your muscles will demand more oxygen, this will make your lungs stronger.
Like we mentioned above, these are only a few of the countless benefits exercise will bring to your life. Talk to your doctor about your concerns and start enjoying the benefits of exercise!