Working Out With a Stoma

Many people take on the mindset that once you have an ostomy, your life becomes very limited in the sense that you are not able to do a lot of the things that you used to. Well , I am here to set the record straight as best as I can. One might say that I am greatly experienced and knowledgeable in the world of ostomy, and that would be because I actually have one myself. That’s right - get all the laughing out of your system now. I have been living with a stoma for the past 2 years, and I can honestly say that I have learned a lot about myself from living with this sort of procedure. One thing for sure, I have definitely seen more parts of myself than I would like to! (That was just a joke about having a stoma, if you didn’t get it).

Anyways, I would like people to know that it is totally possible to live a somewhat normal life after you have a stoma put in. One thing that I have always enjoyed is working out. Believe it or not, you can still workout even after you have had a stoma! I must admit that  I was a bit worried about whether or not I would be able to workout after having my procedure done, but the doctors reassured me that I totally could. In fact, it is actually recommended that people who undergo an ostomy are getting regular exercise on a daily basis if at all possible. 

There are several different types of working out that I used to enjoy most often back before I had an ostomy. My favorite form of exercise was lifting weights, since I am a smaller guy and could use some muscle put onto my bones. In addition to lifting weights, which was what I primarily focused on, I also liked to do different types of cardio when I felt up to it. As most people who work out are familiar with, cardio is a lot harder to convince yourself to do than lifting weights. Most of the time, cardio workouts are simply not a good time and are not super enjoyable. However, there is no denying that it is important to keep up good cardio, so I would usually run or swim when I was looking to do a cardio workout. After I had an ostomy, and once I had recovered from surgery enough, I started to look into getting back into the gym when at all possible. One of the things I was worried about was lifting weights again. After all, it is true that people with stomas are more likely to experience a hernia while lifting heavy weights, and this is something that I wanted to avoid if at all possible. 

The method of weight lifting I do now mostly revolves around higher reps and lower weights. If you are unfamiliar with weight lifting, this basically means that instead of doing 10 reps of 150 pounds on the bench press, I might do 20 reps of 100 pounds. This still builds muscle, but is better for avoiding any sort of serious injury. In addition to being more careful about lifting, you also have to be careful to properly wrap your ostomy pouch when you go to work out.