Lindsey Vonn is pulling back the curtain on her rehab after suffering a catastrophic leg injury during the 2026 Olympics.
“It’s a lot of rehab,” Vonn, 41, told The Athletic in an interview published on Thursday, April 9. “Wake up at 7:30, breakfast at 8, 9 to 11 is rehab at my house. I have a little break, eat some food. Go to a hyperbaric chamber. Do about two hours with decompression in the hyperbaric, and then I come back and have a little break. And then usually work out from, like, 5 to 6:30, little break, shower, dinner.”
She continued, “That’s kind of my day every day, six days a week. Sunday is kind of a day off without a scheduled program. But I, of course, always go to the gym on my own.”
Vonn entered the Olympics in Italy with a torn ACL, which she sustained during a World Cup race in Switzerland on January 30. Pushing through her pain, Vonn competed in the women’s downhill event on February 8 only to crash within 13 seconds. After she was heard screaming in pain, the skier was airlifted to a nearby hospital to undergo an emergency orthopedic operation to stabilize a complex tibia fracture.
“Normally, when you have an ACL or something like that, you start off slowly, but then you eventually, after about a week or two, make pretty good progress,” Vonn said.
While suffering from a torn ACL and a broken leg, Vonn also learned to navigate scar tissue that built up from the pins that stabilized the bone — and made it difficult for her to bend her leg.
“All these things, it took time,” she said. “There were so many layers to it. That made it challenging. And then of course, when you have such slow progress, that inevitably becomes more mentally challenging as well.”
Vonn has since migrated from wheelchair use to crutches, while also using a walker. She told the outlet that her goal is to be able to not use the crutches by the end of this month, but she is still only allowed to put 30 percent of her weight on her leg.
Since the injury, Vonn has given glimpses of her rehab and ongoing recovery via social media. Six weeks after the crash, Vonn shared an Instagram video of her already doing full sets on a pull up bar at the gym.
“First set of pull ups post surgery… slowly getting there,” Vonn captioned the post.
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