After being hospitalized for some time, you will be eager to get back to your normal self. This will involve changes to your diet, a workout plan and low-grade exercising until you're fully healed. No matter how well you feel within the recovery period, it's best not to overdo it. By creating a recovery program with your physician, you can work on improving your health while also allowing your injury time to heal. Here are a few items to help you get started.
Take Your Recover Time Into Consideration
Never go against the recommendations of your physician! You may feel well enough to get back into your normal routine, but your physician may forbid it. The outside of your body heals much quicker than the inside, so this is taken into consideration when he gives you your estimated recovery time. He may allow you to do stationary workouts like lifting light weights or using resistance bands; this should be enough until you get the okay to do more.
Create a Workout Diet
A workout diet should include all of the nutrients necessary to promote healing and general well being. If you've broken a bone or lost a significant amount of blood, you may need a multivitamin that contains calcium, vitamin D, magnesium and iron. These nutrients are also found in healthy foods that have minimal processing. Calcium rich foods include low-fat milk, cheese and yogurt. Vitamin D can be found in fortified juice and milk. Foods that contain iron and magnesium include fortified cereal and red meat. If you're looking to repair a muscle or torn tissue, you may want to increase your consumption of protein. Protein helps boost the healing process and builds new muscle fiber and tissue.
Have a Clear Goal in Mind
What do you want your end goal to be? Are you trying to lose the weight you gained during your injury? Are you building muscle and bone strength in an injured limb? By pinpointing exactly what you want from your recovery program, it will be much easier to find the exercises to support your goals.
Use Modified Workout Equipment for Support
Remember, you're not just working out to improve your strength and health overall, you're working out to help gain normal function in the area you've injured. This requires a delicate approach that normally starts with gentle stretches; and even though the workout is gentle, your doctor may suggest wearing support braces. This may also include using support railing to help you balance, ace bandages to support your knees and elbows, or braces to support your ankles, neck or wrists. If you've had medical tubing inserted during your surgery, your physician may suggest keeping the area bandaged and well-padded to prevent re-injury.
Once you have the above points sorted, you can begin planning out your exercises; but remember to take it slow. Even if you feel well, you still run the risk of re-injury. Run these exercises past your physician before taking part in any of them to make sure that they're safe.