Niko Hansen has been appearing more and more in training sessions of late, but at the end of Crew SC’s Tuesday training session, he participated in his own workout, running the the perimeter of the training pitch under the watch of strength and conditioning coach Brook Hamilton.

More than a month has passed since his last MLS appearance — June 17 at Atlanta — and since a hernia surgery that has sidelined the rookie winger for four straight games. Hansen, the No. 9 overall pick in the 2017 MLS SuperDraft, has been gradually building his fitness base in hopes that he can regain — and surpass — the momentum he was able to find off the bench early in his rookie season.

“I think it’s been an exciting thing, first of all, getting the surgery over with and it going super well. The pain has been minimal, but we took time with it just to make sure I was completely healthy,” Hansen told The Dispatch Tuesday. “But from a playing standpoint it’s never easy to watch other people play. You want to make a difference yourself, but I knew that it was a time to learn as much as possible as well. It gets me a different perspective on the (three in the back) system.”

Hansen said he and the team’s medical staff first discovered the hernia in May but waited until June to send Hansen to Wisconsin to have Dr. Richard Cattey perform his surgery, allowing Hansen to maximize his recovery before and during the Gold Cup break.

“It might have just been weeks of playing and being in the MLS now as opposed to college,” Hansen said. “It’s harder on the body and my body just didn’t know how to react and then it really came out, so we’re not sure how long it had been going on, but we knew for sure in May.”

What the hernia made difficult for Hansen was the first 10-20 percent of his runs as well as the last 10-20 percent, which is difficult for a player who relies on his speed to be successful against opposing defenses.

“Being in the middle zone was all right, but trying to go full sprint and trying to get out of the blocks was more difficult,” Hansen said. “Not being able to utilize that (speed) to the fullest was maybe a little bit frustrating but also my full potential wasn’t being used.”

He spoke with midfielders Justin Meram and Federico Higuain, each of whom has gone through the hernia surgery recovery process and was put at ease by Cattey, the same doctor who performed Higuain’s surgery.

Hansen believes he soon will be able to use his speed to run behind defenses and take advantage of width in a three in the back system in live game action.

“The last two months of playing with something, your body’s like, ‘That’s how you move.’ But you can do what you used to do,” Hansen said. “Looking at the big picture it’s good for me to know that there’s a goal and I want to make that goal. It’s not always fun running by myself, but I know there’s a bigger picture to it.”

Coach Gregg Berhalter admitted Hansen still has more work to do to return being the impactful rookie who had a goal and two assists in his first two months in MLS, but he believes the young winger is capable of regaining that momentum.

“He’s a fighter. He’s one of the only guys that played his way into the lineup, literally,” Berhalter said. “Through training and through games he’s forced his way into the lineup and that’s great. He’s a competitor. He’ll be back into a position to play, for sure.”

He said it

“I think it’s nice when guys speak their minds and say how they feel. I was personally entertained by it and I think that’s him. He’s gotta be who he is and I think the sport needs guys that can show their character.” — Gregg Berhalter, on Real Salt Lake coach Mike Petke’s now famous postgame speech