Exercising After an Inguinal Hernia Surgery
The Inguinal Hernia Location
Having recently undergone an inguinal hernia surgery (robotic), I was interested in resuming my usual gym workout regime. The following are suggestions from my own surgeon and keep in mind, recovery times vary from person to person. The bottom line is that your exercise causes pain in the target area, stop, your not ready.
In my case, I waited a full seven days before returning to the gym after surgery. The first week after surgery should simply be recovering with only walking as exercise. Usually, after the third day after surgery, the pain has diminished greatly to where you can take long protracted walks. Urinating will still be an painful experience only eased by taking Tamsulosin as prescribed. The pain medication a doctor prescribes should be taken minimally due to addiction and constipation. I only used it two days as my pain after surgery was a 5 out of 10.
By the 5th day after surgery, walking is still recommended and you can clock in several miles a day if you can or want. The incision marks will still be causing minor pain even after two weeks and urination pain still may occur.
The instructions given me were:
- No lifting for four weeks of anything heavier more than a gallon of milk (a few pounds)
- No swimming or submersion of wounds underwater for three weeks
- Shower is fine
- Watch the IV site for infection
- No exercise other than walking the first week after surgery
- No exercises that impact the groin or abdominal muscle area (sit ups, weight lifting) for six weeks
- Permitted exercises are biking, walking, hiking, tennis, golf, jogging.
- At the gym: treadmill, elliptical, stair machines, machines that only work the arm or torso muscles
The exercises in the gym can be done as soon as two weeks after surgery but carefully. If you feel any sort of pain, stop. If you feel the groin or ab muscles are being used, stop. Anything involving lifting, stop. However, machines that have you pull, work the chest muscles, arms, can be tried. Many machines can also just work the leg and calf muscles, but not the abdomen!
The robotic inguinal hernia surgery is the least invasive and recovery is much quicker than the regular type. After two weeks recovery with just walking miles a day, I returned to the gym with limitations.
It felt great to exercise the upper body!
