How soon after surgery can I exercise?
It really depends on the site of surgery but as a general rule, you should wait 2 weeks after surgery and then can start very gentle exercising (limited to walking). From 2 – 4 weeks, you can gently build up the level of exercise and after 6 weeks up to 3 months reach back to the level that you were at prior to having the surgery.
With abdominal surgery, we would advise closer to 6 weeks before starting exercise as the area is much larger and needs longer for the abdomen to settle. For Facelift or Eyelid Surgery, we would advise 2 weeks prior to commencing gentle exercise and then building up slowly up to 6 weeks.
Yoga and pilates are fantastic exercise routines but should not be started until 6 weeks. The different positions can place a lot of strain on the wounds and result in stretched scars.
You should not carry out any heavy lifting, bending for at least 6 weeks. All this advice is to help keep the blood pressure low and therefore reduce the amount of swelling and bruising post-operatively.