Why you should bother exercising before surgery
Pre-surgical exercise (or pre-habilitation)
Is pre-surgical rehabilitation for everyone?
Quick answer: yes.
Long answer: some level of pre-surgical rehabilitation can improve your surgical outcome depending on many factors:
The type of surgery - an obvious one but yes, I am saying this to cover my bottom. Simple day surgeries on non-musculoskeletal involving issues are fine without prior training. They have found that training (specifically resistance training) prior to longer-stay procedures can be great in reducing atrophy (muscle wastage) and loss of function. Those that go into surgery
If movement is too irritable prior to surgery, this may not be appropriate. No point messing around and irritating a knee days before surgery, likely the level of swelling and pain will not be worth that extra 1% in muscle mass.
When should I start pre-habilitation?
Earlier the better, typically. The general recommendation is 6-8 weeks to see beneficial adaptations in the muscles and surrounding tissues.
So, moral of the story: maybe don’t rush to the gym if you are having your wisdom teeth extracted (see cheeky pic below if you have made it this far), but if you are going in for a more complex musculoskeletal operation, or an operation involving a longer-stay where there is a higher chance of atrophy, I highly recommend starting some pre-habilitation with a trained health professional (given you have the go-ahead from your surgeon).
