The Gymnast Nutritionist® Podcast
Aug 24, 2026 · 35 min · 10 segments
Surgery doesn’t mean your gymnast suddenly needs to eat less. In this episode, Christina breaks down how nutrition before and after surgery can support healing, preserve muscle, and help gymnasts…
Christina AndersonHostOften, I would say when gymnasts learn that they need surgery, they are worried and maybe their parents or coaches that they're going to, quote unquote, get fat.
And I think a lot of that just has to do with being in an aesthetic sport.
But I also think there is just this message in gymnastics culture that if you take any time off, even on the weekends, you're going to lose your skills, lose your flexibility, lose your fitness.
So I want to remind you, if your gymnast does need surgery and she is going to have some time off the gym, you know, we saw what five, six years ago with COVID that gymnasts could actually be out of the gym for several months and come back and be not just fine, but actually better.
Now, obviously, you know, these are gymnasts who still were probably trying to train to some degree at home.
But what the research shows is that, you know, A little bit of exercise, like even 20% of normal kind of stimulation to the body, to the muscles, goes a long way in terms of just preventing muscle atrophy.
And so normally when a gymnast needs surgery, it's just one body part, right? Like it's a knee, it's an Achilles tendon, it's an elbow.
And so there's actually a lot that can be done from a physical therapy perspective to help maintain the muscle mass we have, to help strengthen the rest of the body so that that return to sport is as smooth and as effective and quick as possible.
We do not want to be in a calorie deficit going into surgery, after surgery, because we need your gymnast's body do have all the building blocks, all the nutrition that it needs to grow and develop and heal and repair and recover.
And what most parents and gymnasts don't think about is anytime we have an injury, and especially surgery, it's not that the body just all of a sudden is doing nothing.
Surgery creates tissue trauma, creates inflammation, it increases protein turnover.
We've got bone and connective tissue remodeling, depending on the surgery.
And so it's not like just because your gymnast is out of the gym and she's had surgery, it means that all of a sudden she needs negative calories.
Often, I would say when gymnasts learn that they need surgery, they are worried and maybe their parents or coaches that they're going to, quote unquote, get fat.
And I think a lot of that just has to do with being in an aesthetic sport.
But I also think there is just this message in gymnastics culture that if you take any time off, even on the weekends, you're going to lose your skills, lose your flexibility, lose your fitness.
So I want to remind you, if your gymnast does need surgery and she is going to have some time off the gym, you know, we saw what five, six years ago with COVID that gymnasts could actually be out of the gym for several months and come back and be not just fine, but actually better.
Now, obviously, you know, these are gymnasts who still were probably trying to train to some degree at home.
But what the research shows is that, you know, A little bit of exercise, like even 20% of normal kind of stimulation to the body, to the muscles, goes a long way in terms of just preventing muscle atrophy.
And so normally when a gymnast needs surgery, it's just one body part, right? Like it's a knee, it's an Achilles tendon, it's an elbow.
And so there's actually a lot that can be done from a physical therapy perspective to help maintain the muscle mass we have, to help strengthen the rest of the body so that that return to sport is as smooth and as effective and quick as possible.
We do not want to be in a calorie deficit going into surgery, after surgery, because we need your gymnast's body do have all the building blocks, all the nutrition that it needs to grow and develop and heal and repair and recover.
And what most parents and gymnasts don't think about is anytime we have an injury, and especially surgery, it's not that the body just all of a sudden is doing nothing.
Surgery creates tissue trauma, creates inflammation, it increases protein turnover.
We've got bone and connective tissue remodeling, depending on the surgery.
And so it's not like just because your gymnast is out of the gym and she's had surgery, it means that all of a sudden she needs negative calories.
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