How much can I exercise after a tummy tuck?

Your surgeon typically performs plication (tightening) of your abdominis rectus (abdominal) muscles during your abdominoplasty (tummy tuck). Generally, you should avoid activity other than ambulation and light walking the first four weeks after surgery. This will generally allow your incision line time to heal without complications.

After four weeks I generally encourage my patients to start light to moderate activity. But because of the plication you should not perform other than light activity during this time period. After 6-8 weeks, most all exercise and activity can be resumed.

It's important to keep in mind that your tissues are not "healed", but are "healing" during this important time period. Only you will know how much tension and exercise your body can accommodate.

After surgery it is wise not to do any activities that elevate your heart rate and blood pressure above a resting rate for about 2 weeks. This is to minimize the chance of delayed bleeding. After a tummy tuck (abdominoplasty) you can begin exercises such as treadmill workouts at that point but avoid abdominal straining exercises for 8 weeks since it takes that long for the muscle repair to reach its fullest healing strength.

My typical post operative restrictions are no lifting greater than 10 lbs for three weeks.

This is a difficult period where you want to exercise to improve your new waistline but can't do so. I tell my patients to switch to a low carb, low calorie diet during this period so that we don't lose ground in this period.

At three weeks you can slowly advance your activity to what is comfortable without causing soreness. At six weeks you can perform any exercise, including sit-ups, which challenge the work that was done the most.

I tell my patients to avoid aerobic type exercise for about 3-4 weeks and to hold off on serious exertional activity like weight lifting and situps for at least 6-8 weeks.