Training after hernia repair surgery

[TZ22]

Hello everyone,

I am wondering if any of you know anyone or have personal experience with having a hernia repair surgery, and if so, how much of a set back was it in terms of training? I've had a small umbilical hernia for about 10 years and it has never affected my ability to exercise and does not cause me any symptoms other than the cosmetic issue, but when I was getting my medical form signed for competition a doctor suggested that I should consider having it repaired so I had a consultation with a surgeon last week, he said that the procedure would be a day surgery and take about 45 minutes, no mesh needs to be used, just sutures, and that I should be ok to go back to my activities in about 2-3 weeks, but now that I think about it, it sounds a bit too optimistic and I am not sure if maybe the surgeon misunderstood the level of my training intensity to give me such a short recovery time eventhough I did tell him that I do martial arts and weight lifting/crossfit so I thought I would ask around for second opinion because if it's going to cause a long recovery then maybe I should postpone the procedure even longer so that i don't end up ruining another year that I could have been competing

[Fighting Frog]

If you like I can ask one of our consultant general surgeons when I'm at work on Friday, and post back on Saturday. They're used to me asking questions about getting back into MT after hurting myself, and they know what I get up to with it, so they should be reasonably helpful.

Your main problem will probably revolve around the risk of getting kicked or punched right in your newly repaired belly button!

[TZ22]

Yes, if you could ask them that would be great, thank you :)

[Fighting Frog]

Oops, sorry, forgot to come back to this (Christmas!) - I asked my own surgeon (colorectal consultant) and he said assuming it's just a quick two stitch hernia repair with no mesh etc then he would reckon leaving it a month before even thinking about re-starting MT exercise - and that means a month NOT doing exercise at all, to let it really heal properly.

However, if it ends up needing a mesh, or more than a poke-it-back-put-in-a-stitch then it will be correspondingly longer without exercise. He knows I get kicked/punched in the gut (he's seen the bruises!) so he does understand what is involved - and he took my part about restarting MT against the pelvic floor rehab person (who had the screaming heebiejeebies when she realised what core exercises MT practitioners do and said I shouldn't do them), so he's pretty cool. He says a fortnight is definitely not long enough; a month should be ok. 2-3 weeks is generally considered ok to then restart 'ordinary' activities. Hardcore activities need longer.

But of course, one never knows quite what will happen in surgery, or how one's body will react to the op. Hope this helps.

[TZ22]

Great, thank you, that definitely helps :) I thought about it some more and decided that I will wait a bit more since it does not seem to be bothering me now and I am still not sure what my competition year will look like so there are too many uncertainties and too many other things going on that going through this completely elective procedure at this time just does not work well, especially since it confirms that I will need more time before I can get back to training so I think I should just wait.