You'll want life to return to normal as quickly as possible after your dental implant surgery. Despite the simplicity of the surgery (it's an outpatient procedure performed under local anaesthetic), you can't forget that you're still undergoing surgery, so some precautions are essential. Some of these can be quite obvious—like moderating what you eat while your jaw heals. But what about exercising after your dental implant surgery?

A Small Break

For some, the idea of not exercising each and every day can be daunting. However, you will need to take a small break following your implant surgery. Excessive exercise will disrupt the healing process. So why can't your mouth handle the physical stimulation of exercise experienced by other parts of your body? 

Heart and Blood

Exercise increases your heart rate, causing it to pump blood around your circulatory system at an increased speed. When recovering from dental implant surgery, this increased heart rate can cause excessive bleeding at your implant site, potentially even reopening the incision. Immediately following implant surgery, you should be preoccupied with minimising bleeding (even though the implant site will be sutured). Certain high-intensity physical activities (like lifting weights) can cause you to unknowingly clench your jaw. This can lead to an accidental breakage of your sutures.

Natural Healing Process

The post-surgery healing process must always be respected, and this is absolutely fundamental with dental implants. Implants piggyback the body's natural healing process. Immediately after insertion, your jawbone begins to heal around the implant. This holds it in place, giving it the required security to support a false tooth. Any disruptions to the healing process can easily lead to dental implant failure (and the implant will then need to be removed).

Best Schedule

Your best schedule for returning to exercise will be different to someone else's. It depends on your age, general health, oral health, and the nature of your implant procedure (whether you received a single tooth implant or underwent multiple simultaneous procedures. You may need to ease yourself back into your regular exercise regime. High-intensity exercise will be delayed for several days, or as recommended by your dentist—and you should ask your dentist for guidance. Simply talk to your dentist about your typical exercise regime and when you can return to it. 

Although you may need to take a few days off from your usual high-intensity exercise, the long-term success of your dental implant might depend on it—and the small sacrifice is going to be worthwhile.