What is a hernia?
A hernia can be defined as the movement of an anatomical structure outside its physiological boundaries, damaging, pressing and disturbing other nearby tissues. The most common hernias are those involving the intervertebral discs of our spine.
Their alteration can disturb the nerves, creating important symptoms such as alterations in sensitivity or muscle weakness or even very strong and limiting pain. Another very common hernia is the abdominal one, and also the inguinal one.
What is hernia surgery?
Hernia surgery aims to replace the structures, the tissues that present an alteration of their anatomical part, bringing everything back to their normal position, thus also recovering the physiological functionality of the parts involved. Hernias are sometimes caused by repeated efforts over time, so recovery from hernia surgery involves a careful return to physical exercise and normal activity without causing recurrence, also acting on the modification of those postures or incorrect attitudes that caused the injury.
Exercises to optimize recovery
There are several exercises that can be done even before surgery to promote rapid and effective recovery, let’s see some examples below:
- Improve cardio-respiratory health: any type of exercise that is able to stimulate the respiratory and cardiac systems will help improve the overall health of the body and promote recovery from any type of operation. This group includes activities such as walking, jogging, reading or swimming;
- Strengthen the limbs: doing exercises for both the arms and legs, such as simple bicep curls or squats or lunges for the lower limbs, can aid post-operative recovery by ensuring that an excessive amount of muscle is not lost. muscle mass, making the patient feel less weak and tired in the rehabilitation phase.
Exercising and strengthening at the gym is a great way to improve your fitness, but even doing small things at home can make a big difference if the gym isn’t immediately within your reach.
In these cases it can be very useful to speak directly with the doctor who will perform the operation to understand what types of advice he has to suggest.
Recovery from hernia surgery
The post-operative phase is that of actual recovery, in which the management of the operated part and in general of the whole body becomes fundamental. As for the pre-operative, let’s see some useful exercises that can be performed:
Breathing:
when you have to start a process aimed at returning to movement after hernia surgery, it is best to accustom the patient to breathing in a certain way, called diaphragmatic, which allows you to better manage abdominal pressures and lighten the imposed mechanical stress to the spine and abdominal muscles;
Walking:
The best exercise to do after hernia surgery, whether on the back or abdomen, is to get up and walk as soon as possible. This helps maintain blood circulation by promoting tissue oxygenation and maintains greater tone of both the back and abdominal muscles. It is important to do progressive work so as not to suddenly stress areas that perhaps have been immobilized for a few days. Another very very important benefit obtained from walking is to avoid the formation of small clots, especially in the vessels of the lower limbs, which are potentially very harmful;
Leg exercises:
These exercises also help keep your legs strong so you can move more easily and keep your circulation moving, to prevent, as previously mentioned, the formation of blood clots. The most common exercises can involve either the calves, for example by forcing yourself to walk on tiptoe, or the thighs, with squats or light lunges;
Abdominal exercises:
These exercises will help strengthen the so-called “core” muscles. They are important because they often allow us to avoid relapses. Whether the hernia is in the back, in the abdomen or in the groin, strengthening your abdomen can help the body for several reasons, first of all the fact of having greater stability in the central part of the body during possible heavy work that tends to stress the lumbar area and hips.
Furthermore, if combined with good breathing work as previously mentioned, they can also participate in maintaining the correct pressures inside the abdominal cavity. In the case of an abdominal hernia, it will be necessary to be very careful when starting with the work, waiting until the scar is well closed and that the execution of the movement does not lead to another injury to the wall affected by the hernia but instead allows it to strengthen, avoiding future problems.
Conclusions An operation to remove a hernia in the spine can take up to 12 weeks to fully recover your mobility and be able to make efforts or lift weights again. An abdominal hernia, on the other hand, can keep the patient in a recovery phase for at least 4 – 6 weeks. These long periods make us understand that during the post-operative period we should not expect too much progress quickly and in a very short time, on the contrary, it is best to do everything calmly and progressively.
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