Surgery Recovery: The hardest rep is doing nothing.

the foggy first week

The first week of surgery recovery is a blur I can hardly piece together. I know my family flew in from out of state to help. I know I came home from the hospital and collapsed into my favorite chair. I know I sat in front of the TV and watched movies. But if you asked me which ones, I couldn’t tell you.

I do remember one thing. That first day home, I actually went to Best Buy to pick up some new hardware. I was moving around, feeling proud of myself and I thought, “Hey, this isn’t so bad. I’m up, I’m moving, I’ve got this.” That night, though, when the nerve block wore off? Holy good grief. The pain slammed into me like a brick, and all that “I’ve got this” confidence evaporated in just a few minutes. Turns out I wasn’t Wonder Woman, I was just numb.

And then there was day three. Heavy on narcotics, and someone slid into my DMs: “Hey, did you see this response to that video?” And I swear, in that moment, I thought, I wouldn’t care if the moon blew up right now. That’s how far gone I was. Whole planets could’ve been colliding in the sky, and my only thought would’ve been, “Pass the fu***** ice pack.” Recovery does that; the things that usually grab your attention don’t even register.

when CrossFit brain collides with surgery recovery brain

The following week, my CrossFit brain started screaming. That little voice we all know so well: One more rep, one more set, keep moving. That voice is what drives us to be relentless. It’s what gets us through AMRAPs, burpees, and the kind of workouts that leave you sweating on the floor. But that voice doesn’t care if you’re not healed. It doesn’t care if your bone is fragile. It only knows forward. And forward, right now, is dangerous.

The antibiotics I’m on are heavy and I call them nuclear. They’re meant to ward off infection, but they also carry significant risks. One of the biggest? Tendon rupture. And not just a “sore shoulder for a week” kind of rupture. A complete tear or a life-changing type of rupture. That’s why doctors hate prescribing them to athletes of any kind. We’re notorious for doing too much too soon. We’re the ones who look at a warning label and think, “Yeah, but maybe I can just do some sit-ups. Maybe just a little overhead work. That won’t hurt, right?”

But that’s the trap. I could walk into the gym tomorrow and snap a tendon in a completely different part of my body just because I couldn’t sit still. For what? For a handful of sit-ups? A box check to say I “did something”?

the surgeon’s warning

My surgeon knew this would be my battle. He looked me straight in the eye before discharge and said, “This is going to be the hardest time for you. I know your mindset. I know what you’re made of. But you can’t do anything. I literally don’t want you doing anything.”

He didn’t just mean squats or heavy lifts; he meant all of them. He meant no sit-ups, no overhead movements. Nothing that could even hint at strain.

not that kind of recovery

Let’s take total joint replacements, for example: a knee, a hip. From the moment you wake up in a hospital bed, the nurses are pulling you to your feet. Rehab starts before the anesthesia even clears. The mantra is move early, move often. Every step is celebrated as proof that the new hardware is taking. That kind of recovery is a sprint toward full function, and it rewards effort from the very first day.

But this isn’t that. This is a complete 180. The bone has to regrow. The margins are fragile, like a thin green branch that hasn’t hardened yet. If you put too much weight on it, it can snap, and there is no bouncing back from that. For the first couple of months, the only assignment is restraint. The hardest part is believing that less really is more.

Different surgeries demand different playbooks. Joint replacements reward motion; my surgery recovery demands stillness. No extra credit, no getting ahead of the program. It’s maddening, because everything in me wants to train.

what we celebrate

Over the last two weeks, I often thought about that story I read once about an elite athlete who competed two weeks postpartum and it caused all kinds of comment section choas. Two weeks. Part of me wanted to cheer. That’s what we do; we celebrate grit. But another part of me whispered, “Isn’t she still bleeding?”

That thought has never come from judgment. It has always come from the most profound concern. Just because we can doesn’t always mean we should. Have we learned how to celebrate recovery the same way we celebrate the grind? Recovery deserves a standing ovation, too.

the hardest rep

Sometimes the strongest rep you can do is the one you never take. And sometimes the only way forward is to sit down, breathe, and let your body catch up to your spirit.

I want to get after it, I want to fight, I want to prove I’m ready. My head is in the game, my spirit is hungry, but my body is not there yet.

So the brain has to find other reps. Yesterday, I tricked out the walker; custom pink hand grips, matching tennis balls, and a proud little sticker that reads 21.15.9. (If this is going to be my ride, it might as well rep CrossFit flair.) I’ve even mastered vacuuming on a walker. Let me tell you, when I figured out how to clean my living room with wheels under me, it felt like winning the Games. Independence has to be reimagined, (at least for a short while) and I’m here for it.

And there’s plenty more. Building the database for ScaleForward, L3 study, writing, and creating. My CrossFit brain may not be able to handle barbells right now, but it still gets a workout. This isn’t wasted time; it’s different training: less iron, more imagination. And that, too, is strength.