JeffM
Well-known member
John,
I've learned, especially from this great site,that everyone's different in how they recover and at what points certain levels of cardiovascular "stress" is OK. Sounds like you're on board with the sternum healing instructions and please make sure you continue to be mindful of the precautions when you start feeling better after 4 or so weeks. I'm at 11 weeks and am able to do just about everything but I had to exercise a lot of patience. I was not as patient with my cardio exercise and I know I pushed the limit several times. The punishment was, I felt like poop the next day, but I was OK...lesson learned. If you are an athlete, you are more in touch in certain ways with your body than a lot of people and with some common sense and erring on the side of caution, you should be fine. But call your cardiologist and run your plans by him/her. I was on my bike on the rollers in doors and on a stationary bike at the gym within 3-4 weeks and had been walking quite a bit. I believe walking is one of the best things you can do because it gets everything moving including excess fluids around your heart and lungs better than cycling. So, walking is a better excercise early in the recovery period. After 6 weeks, my cardiologist gave me no limitations on HR except, she said, "you seem like a pretty smart guy with respect to your body...so, don't be an idiot". I thought that was good advice, and for the most part, I followed it. My wife would argue that, I'm sure, but we're talking heart stuff here. Bottom line: Excercise, but don't do the performance oriented, lactate threshold + type of work until much later. There's plenty of time for that and you need to rebuild your aerobic base first....and really, really ease into the weights. I hope that helps. Good luck with your recovery!
I've learned, especially from this great site,that everyone's different in how they recover and at what points certain levels of cardiovascular "stress" is OK. Sounds like you're on board with the sternum healing instructions and please make sure you continue to be mindful of the precautions when you start feeling better after 4 or so weeks. I'm at 11 weeks and am able to do just about everything but I had to exercise a lot of patience. I was not as patient with my cardio exercise and I know I pushed the limit several times. The punishment was, I felt like poop the next day, but I was OK...lesson learned. If you are an athlete, you are more in touch in certain ways with your body than a lot of people and with some common sense and erring on the side of caution, you should be fine. But call your cardiologist and run your plans by him/her. I was on my bike on the rollers in doors and on a stationary bike at the gym within 3-4 weeks and had been walking quite a bit. I believe walking is one of the best things you can do because it gets everything moving including excess fluids around your heart and lungs better than cycling. So, walking is a better excercise early in the recovery period. After 6 weeks, my cardiologist gave me no limitations on HR except, she said, "you seem like a pretty smart guy with respect to your body...so, don't be an idiot". I thought that was good advice, and for the most part, I followed it. My wife would argue that, I'm sure, but we're talking heart stuff here. Bottom line: Excercise, but don't do the performance oriented, lactate threshold + type of work until much later. There's plenty of time for that and you need to rebuild your aerobic base first....and really, really ease into the weights. I hope that helps. Good luck with your recovery!
