Hello. I am having Ulnar Nerve Release surgery later this month to correct Cubital Tunnel in my right elbow. My doc says to take 6 weeks off from lifting afterwards, but something tells me (or I hope at least), that is a super conservative approach and I will be lifting much, much sooner than that. If my elbow feels normal is there any risk to start training at that point? Thoughts? Thanks for everything!
It depends on how you are going to define training. I certainly think you can lift during that span but I would probably keep you off deadlift/heavy pulls, heavy press, and heavy bench. I’d also probably have you working with a SSB for the first few weeks. There are plenty of things you can work on during that span, but 6 weeks before going ham is probably good advice.
Just following up on Derek’s response, we work with a few sports MDs who does this procedure regularly and their general protocol for baseball players allows them to start upper body resistance at 3 weeks post-op (higher reps, sub max) and they can return to throwing stress on the elbow at 6 weeks assuming pain and range of motion are obtained so you should be safe to do some upper body lifts with modification if all is going well earlier than 6 weeks, good luck