Operation Exercise

It's now been a couple of days shy of six weeks since I had a procedure to repair an abdominal hernia.  The procedure was easy, but the recuperation has taken longer than I anticipated.  Up until last week the incision still hurt after exertion, but this week I really feel like I've turned the corner.  In honor of that, today I went to the gym.

The weeks before my surgery were a flurry of activity as I got ready to be out of commission. With not enough time to do everything, exercise was the first thing to go.  My gym has a wide range of classes to choose from, but I decided that piyoga would be a good way to ease back into things.  The combination of yoga and Pilates movements were slow enough that I could do as much as I felt comfortable with and modify things as needed.  This morning I dug my membership card out of the depths of my purse and made sure my water bottle was in the car before I left the house.

Before the class started I told the instructor why I might modify a position (or even get up and leave if it ended up being too much).  I spread my mat out on the floor, attempted to sit cross legged on it, and I realized a lot of my flexibility was gone.  As soon as we started doing the first set of stretches some of the flexibility started coming back, which felt marvelous.

Not surprisingly, the hardest moves for me to do were ones that used my ab muscles.  When everyone else was doing a plank on their elbows and toes, mine was on my elbows and knees.  My down dog was as sick as a dog, and my boat looked like it was going to sink.  The back bend was non-existent, more just looking at the ceiling without bending back.

When I was done my abdomen was sore, but in a good way.  The muscles were telling me they'd received the message it was time for them to start shaping up again.  Depending on how I feel tomorrow, I may go back to the gym and take another class.  We'll see.