Pre- surgery exercise

LaVieSuite

I am due to have knee surgery in a few weeks. I have already spent the past 3 week not exercising due to pain and fear that some exercise I was doing caused the tear.
Now I'm gaining weight...

Are there any exercises that do not aggravate an already painful knee?

concordancia

As a disclaimer, check with your specialist and/or physical therapist.

Deep water aerobics was invented for runners recovering from knee injuries. I imagine most things in the pool would be good options.

There are also chair aerobics videos on youtube. Some of them are as lame as it sounds, but some of them will really work up a sweat!

999tigger

What concord said about getting best advice from your Dr or physio.

Its amazing that when you get injured its only then that you realise how much you use particular muscles. If you are in a gym, then some of them have either a Krankle machine and others have a rope machine which uses the upper body only either to pedal or pull rope, which would be good for cardio and upper body strength.

If you dont have a gym, then have had a look and it seems there are common exercises that people can do at home for pre and post sugery. With anything medical though you should check with your Dr or physio to make sure its safe.

http://www.allinahealth.org/ac/patiented.nsf/page/knee_exercises

https://myhealth.alberta.ca/Alberta/Pages/exercises-before-knee-replacement-surgery.aspx

http://www.healthline.com/health-slideshow/exercises-before-total-knee-replacement-surgery

Cherimoose

LaVieSuite wrote: »

I have already spent the past 3 week not exercising due to pain and fear that some exercise I was doing caused the tear.
Now I'm gaining weight...

If you gained fat, you ate too many calories. You can reverse it by reducing your calorie intake.

Kalikel

I was going to suggest a pool, too, but you should of course be asking the doctor and surgeon about what you should and shouldn't be doing.

acpgee

I had ankle surgery in July and had to be strictly non weight bearing for 6 weeks. I was allowed to use crutches or a walking frame, and hop with the good foot right from day one. This was pretty strenuous cardio, actually. According to my HRM, my heart rate was at 140 within 10 or 12 minutes and I would burn about 250 kcal in 30 minutes. That's the same burn rate as my regular cardio workout on the elliptical.

BTW, the MFP database entry for "walking with crutches" was pretty much spot on according to my HRM. The entry was made by someone on FL who broke her ankle, and calibrated the entry to her HRM.