Abstract: Objective To explore the effect of quantitative exercise on recovery speed and recovery quality of patients with esophageal cancer after minimally invasive esophagectomy. Methods A total of 244 esophageal cancer patients who underwent minimally invasive resection in our hospital from October 2015 to November 2017 were collected, and divided randomly and equally into observation group and control group. Patients in control group adopted routine nursing measures and patients in observation group adopted quantitative exercise besides routine nursing measures. Out-of-bed activity time, daily amount of exercise, rehabilitation assessment (the removal time of gastric tuber, intestinal exhaust time, the incidence of post-surgery complications) and post-surgery hospitalization duration. Results A total of 86 cases in observation group and 46 cases in control group had out-of-bed activity in 24 h post surgery, and out-of-bed activity time of patients in observation group is slightly earlier than that in control group (P<0.05). The same results were observed in the amount of out-of-bed activity of 24 h, 24-36 h and >36 h post surgery (P<0.05). The amount of out-of-bed activity of patients in observation group each day during the first five days post surgery were significantly higher than that in the control group (P<0.05). The gastric tuber detaining time of patients in observation group was shorter than that of patients in control group[ (58.0±14.8) h vs. (69.0±12.6) h, P<0.05]. The same condition was observed on intestinal exhaust time[ (39.9±17.5) h vs. (44.8±15.6) h, P<0.05] and hospitalization time [ (10.6±1.2) h vs. (11.7±1.3) h, P<0.05]. The incidence of complications in observation group was lower than that in the control group (10.65% vs. 19.67%, P<0.05). Conclusion Quantitative exercise could accelerate the recovery rate, improve the rehabilitation quality and shorten the length of stay of patients after minimally invasive esophagectomy, and could be applied to clinical practice.