Lindsey Vonn is hitting the gym again, just four months after a significant leg injury.
The 41-year-old former Olympic skier shared her workout progress on Instagram, filled with smiles and playful emojis like laughter, raised hands, and muscle flexes.
Vonn faced a fall and fracture during the initial run of the Milan-Cortina Olympics back in February, and she managed to compete without the heavy braces on her surgically repaired leg.
“This is what I look like when I can actually train at the gym!” she posted. “I’m so happy and excited that I can’t express it in words!”
The video featured Vonn mimicking skiing movements on a mat, squatting with a medicine ball nestled between her knees on an incline, and executing Bulgarian split squats before tackling some pull-ups.
Her recovery is impressive, especially considering the injury occurred when she got stuck in a gate while skiing in Italy. After being spun around in a painful incident, she was airlifted with fractures in her tibia and ankle.
As the first American woman to earn a gold medal in downhill at the 2010 Olympics, Vonn had already been skiing with a torn ACL in her left knee. This Olympics marked her return after a five-year break following partial knee replacement surgery.
She faced a potential leg amputation due to compartment syndrome, which causes painful pressure in the muscles and restricts blood flow.
“Dr. Tom Hackett saved my life. He saved my leg from having to be amputated,” Vonn shared in a February Instagram video. “If I hadn’t torn my ACL, Tom wouldn’t have been there.”
Spotted in a wheelchair at Los Angeles Airport in late April, she made her public appearance without crutches for the first time at the Met Gala in May.
Vonn has been candid about the mental hurdles she faces in her recovery. Although she has postponed retirement, her future in skiing is still a question mark.
“It was the most extreme, painful, and difficult injury, 100 times more than I’ve ever faced in my life,” she mentioned back in February.
During her rehabilitation, rumors of a budding relationship with French skier Mathieu Baillet began to circulate after they were seen together in New York.
