Walking from day three, light cardio at day ten, weights in week three, pool and sea at four weeks, hammam at six. Here is the reasoning behind each date.
For the first three days the grafts sit in open channels held only by a fibrin clot. A raised heart rate and higher blood pressure push against that clot and can start bleeding around individual grafts. Sweat is a separate problem: it is salty, it stings freshly grafted skin, and it softens the crusts you have been told to leave alone. By day ten new blood supply anchors the grafts and both risks fall away.
Walking is fine from day three and actually useful, because gentle movement helps swelling drain. Light cardio at a conversational pace returns around day ten. Weights come back in week three, avoiding anything that strains the neck or leaves you red-faced, and normal lifting in week four. Contact sports, martial arts and anything worn on the head wait six to eight weeks, because the risk there is impact rather than exertion.
Chlorinated pools wait four weeks; chlorine irritates healing skin and shared water carries an infection risk while channels are still closing. Sea swimming is also four weeks, and there the sun is a bigger issue than the salt. Steam rooms, saunas and the Turkish hammam that every patient in Istanbul asks about wait six weeks, because heat, heavy sweating and scrubbing are three separate problems in one room.
The two failures we see are dislodged grafts before day ten, which are simply lost, and folliculitis from sweat trapped under a cap or picked up from unwashed gym equipment. Folliculitis looks alarming, appears as small pustules somewhere between weeks three and six, and usually settles with antiseptic washes — but it is entirely avoidable. A fortnight of patience protects a result you keep for the rest of your life.
No. Wait until day ten for anything that meaningfully raises your heart rate. Walking from day three is encouraged, but nothing that makes you sweat into the recipient area.
The same rule as the gym applies, because it raises blood pressure. We ask patients to wait a week, and to keep the recipient area free of contact for a full ten days.