I’m scheduled for relatively minor surgery in about a month. According to the doctor, I will be laid up for 3-7 days, and unable to train for about 3 weeks afterwards.
I’m looking for suggestions about what to do to minimize the negative effects of this lay-off.
Currently, I’m thinking about training very intensely for the next month – burn out level. I will have a lot of time off to recover from any overtraining.
I’m more worried about my diet and maintance post-surgery. My calorie expenditure is going to come down pretty significantly and I’m somewhat endomorphic – high risk of fat gain. I was thinking of dieting down in my lay off period, following a sensible muscle-preserving diet.
get a electro-stimulation unit (like the one you probably know from tv). they are damn expensive, but you could rent one for a month. it?s nothing great to built muscle, but it might prevent atrophy a bit.
You DON’T want to be in a calorie deficit when healing from surgery. If anything gain a bit. You need the nutrients to heal. You’d rather heal properly and then get back to training hard core rather than risk a faulty recovery.
What type of surgery is it? You can keep up other areas too…I had ankle surgery in November and was not walking for a month. I was in the gym a week after doing upper body though…I actually gained throughout. My legs of course are still coming back, but at least the tendon is repaired…
[quote]da sheep wrote:
get a electro-stimulation unit (like the one you probably know from tv). they are damn expensive, but you could rent one for a month. it?s nothing great to built muscle, but it might prevent atrophy a bit.[/quote]
Huh? Like those ab belts you see on tv? Obviously more sophisticated but that general idea?
You’d be risking your health if you tire yourself out too much before surgery that requires that much recovery time, and then went into an energy deficit (calories = energy) while your body is trying to heal. You might gain some fat (in exchange for muscle) from the lack of training, but I’d be very surprised if you didn’t lose at least a little weight.
I’d say relax. Be a normal (not totally normal) American for a few weeks.
I’d say if you just eat super clean throughout your recovery time - tons of vegetables, quality protein, etc - you shouldn’t worry about any excess fat gain if thats what you’re mostly worried about.