Hi everyone!

I am due to have a foot operation on Tuesday, and that means I'll be wearing a post surgical shoe for six weeks. Currently, I cycle to work and back (45mins a day), do weekend mountain bike rides, swim 2-3 x a week and in a previous life before my feet started annoying me, I ran 3-4 times a week. I do Pilates once a week too.

I am slightly concerned that I will balloon if I am not burning these calories. So, I am looking for tips for exercise I can do. All the equipment I have at home so far is: weights (belong to my bf); those things you can attach to doors for resistance; exercise ball; yoga mat.

I think I can carry on with Pilates (maybe upping it to 2-3 times a week) and getting to and from work with crutches will be a mission in itself. Does anybody have any other tips?! DVD recommendations or experience with non weight bearing exercise?

For the first six days I am literally going to do nothing except sit and let it heal (whilst eating 1,200 calories of low carb stuff), but I will die of boredom if I have to do that for too long!

Any tips would be gratefully received!

ps: I can't swim because I can't get my foot wet for six weeks (yes that includes showering, gross!)

I'll be interested to hear answers here as well, because I have a sprained foot and my walking routine is on hold, and I'm not supposed to put a lot of weight on it either.

I did just do my resistance bands and MAN are my arms killing... Definitely did something and I'm gonna try to do it some more later a few times.

Goggle "chair exercises" and you'll come up with tons of exercises to do sitting down.

Also, walking on crutches feels like a workout in itself, so maybe use that! Other than that any arm exercises (weights) and maybe sit ups and dips. If you stick to your food side of things you will be fine, just dont let boredom or lack of mobility to corrupt your mind into eating (maybe update your itunes, or blog or cook batches of dinners and freeze them)!! What operation are you getting? Ohh and on showering, tape a plastic bag around the cast, make sure the water cannot run down inside from the top, and it will be fine. but make sure you take care on crutches, wet floors (if your bathroom is tiled or timber floor) are lethal as the rubber end on the crutch does not grip at all, I fell getting out of the shower so be careful, maybe put a damp towel down on the floor (damp it so it prevents the towel slipping as easy on the floor, and also the rubber grips it better).

Swimming!

You can keep up your upper body with dumbbells.
Pushups from the knees.
There are leg exercises that you can do on the floor (side lying leg lifts, donkey kicks, etc)
If you go to physical therapy after your surgery be sure to ask your therapist for ideas.

Best wishes with the surgery

Thanks for all your answers, great ideas! I think I'll keep up with pilates and will add some upper arm exercises in (which I never ever do now anyway, bonus!). I'll try leg exercises, but I am a bit wary of the fact I can't let my toes touch the floor. I'll see what I can do.

Irishlad - thanks for the tips about showering! I think I'm going to tape a bag around my foot, and sit on a stool inside the bath and put my leg outside of the shower curtain. Sounds like an absolute mission, jeez...

I'll let you know which exercises work and which don't!

Claire

Another thing is to make sure you do ALL the exercises your physio gives you, I know from experience, only did about half of them- and it took longer to recover. They can be boring, time wasting etc but try get through them all, I found that my achilles tightened up a bit with being in a cast for 6 weeks and the lifting and lowering motion of my ankle was slightly limited. On the upside my ankle doesnt seem to give much trouble anymore and I did a good job damaging it!! I am back to the dog that bit me (back playing soccer which I should thank for re-arranging it in the first place!!).