Hi!
As someone who was an experienced lifter before surgery (and is only ~5 weeks out) can you elaborate a bit more on what happened when things "fell apart?" I feel confident in my ability to work my weight back up eventually (way down the line) but want to avoid any setbacks.
If you want to avoid setbacks, IMHO, don’t try to lift much at all in the first year … no matter your experience and self-belief. I am experienced, confident, and know my body. I did the right things by going to cardiac rehab and getting approval from doctors. I waited the required 4 months before beginning again. AND I started slooow. I started off with benching the bar (45lb) which is nothing to someone who has benched heavy for ~35 years. I raised my bench 10lb a week until I was at the ol standard of a 45 on each side (135). Cool.
However, shortly after reaching that goal, I just can’t lift anything like that anymore. I can walk for miles. I never get out of breath. I can do all of the normal human activities … but lifting weights like I previously did is now impossible. If I go past a certain point of “strenuous”, even though it feels GREAT while working out, I go downhill over the next 24h and take about 1-2 weeks to recover. The downhill is a feeling of exhaustion, a thumping heart (like after surgery), PVCs, a higher heart rate, and slightly higher blood pressure. When I hit that point it really sucks. No pain - just complete exhaustion for what appears to be no apparent reason. And it takes awhile to recover.
Docs have done a CT study with contrast, echoes, X-rays, stress test, blood test. They can’t find anything. But it’s there.
I chalk it up to me pushing too hard during months 4-6 to reach a “goal”. The goal seemed completely realistic - especially given my experience. But, alas, it was not meant to be for me. Although I started slow - I shouldn’t have increased my weight like that (even though it seemed slow and easy). Along with starting off slow, I should have just stuck to maybe no more than 40% of my previous weights and just stuck there for a year without any increases.
JMHO.
I’ve also told my closest friends who are also bigtime weight lifters that if they ever have OHS that they have to do what I just recommended. There’s too much at stake and an extra 8 months of lifting light weight is well worth it.