Why Should I Be Strength Training After My Surgery?
Strength train to prevent and lower your risk to injury or reinjury after surgery! After surgery and the many months of rehabilitation exercises you may be looking forward to stopping your recovery exercises. However, strength training after injury or surgery is critical to prevent future injuries and keep your surgical joint healthy. Curovate is an app for physical therapy and provides education, exercise information and video guidance all developed by a licensed physical therapist. Did you know, strength training can help prevent further injury? You have worked so hard to get to a point where you can do all of your daily life activities. Now it’s necessary to keep going! This blog will explain why continuing strength training is so important for you.
What is strength training? Strength training is a form of resistance training, helping to build muscle. Resistance training is a form of physical activity designed to improve strength and endurance and typically involves the use of your body weight or external weights. Oftentimes strength training is associated with weight loss. Strength training offers a variety of benefits, specifically to people following injury and surgery.[1]
Why should I strength train? After injury or surgery people experience loss of muscle tissue. Muscle tissue moves through contraction. All body movements are produced through muscle contraction. Muscle tissues are composed of two types of contractile proteins known as actin and myosin. Specifically related to knee or hip rehabilitation, it is skeletal muscle tissue that needs to undergo strength training.[1]
Often during periods of injury or after surgery people lose muscle due to decreased physical activity. Our daily physical activity that we often take for granted can include simple activities such as standing and complex activities such as jumping or playing sports. Loss of muscle tissue is a contributor to increased injury rates and increased body weight.[1]
Benefits of strength training include an increased lean body mass (lower fat mass), increased bone density (strengthening bones), and the building of muscle tissue. These benefits lower peoples' risk of injury.[2] These benefits of strength training will help you on your road to recovery, specifically helping you gain muscular strength and move safely.
Lean Body Mass (Lower Fat Mass)
Strength training allows you to improve speed and power. These trained assets decrease your body fat, increasing your lean body mass. Possessing a lean body mass is critical in the development of muscle. Associated with muscular development is the production of high-quality movement. Additionally, improving your movement quality reduces your chances of future injuries![1]
Bone Density
Bones play many roles in our body, providing structure, protecting our organs, and serving as an anchor for muscles. Everyone must protect their bones to maintain high levels of functioning. Having a high bone density is associated with injury prevention, specifically in the hip and knees. Bone density prevents bone injury due to increased bone support.[1]
Muscle Tissue
The development of larger muscle tissue lowers the stress that a bone takes when loading weight onto the body. Muscles help decrease the stress of a load on bones. Loads applied to muscles can include walking to complex activities such as jumping. Additionally, muscles help provide stability in movement. Movement is produced through the contraction of muscles.[1]
Strength training helps not only preserve but enhance the function of your knee or hip joint after surgery. Continue to engage in strength training to not only continually enhance your strength, but also to prevent reinjury!
Conclusion
The most important reason to continue with strength training after your surgery is to ensure that you prevent reinjury and overall reduce your chances of other injuries! There are additional reasons for continuing with strength training such as increasing your muscle mass, increasing your bone density and reducing your fat mass. All of this results in improving your speed, strength and power. Great reasons for continuing with you strength training after surgery.
Curovate is for ACL, knee replacement, or hip replacement recovery. It provides you with guided exercises, rehab reminders, progress tracking, and can even measure your range of motion, all from the convenience of your phone. Click on the links below!
If you need further customized assistance during your surgery or injury recovery check out our Virtual Physical Therapy page to book your 1-on-1 video session with a physical therapist.