6 Months and Completing Jump Training

Well I have just passed the 6 month mark after I had ACL surgery. Honestly the time has really flown by. Not to say that it seemed like forever until I could bike or swim or run, but looking back it has really gone by quickly. My knee is in great condition and the doctor has released me to do whatever I want. Just if I do anything like basketball, tennis, ski, etc. I should wear a brace. My knee feels a little sore now and then, I've been working on running more and increasing slowly so I know how much I can do.

When I first started running I ran too much and was sore. So now I'm working my way up, running walking for 20 minutes, and increasing the time that I run. This way I can figure out when I get sore, or perhaps not at all if I progress well.

My knee is still a little stiff at times, so I make sure and stretch it regularly. I am almost done with the final week of the jump training that my physical therapist assigned me to do. After that I'm going to start with some vertical leap training to increase the strength of my legs more before I start playing basketball again. Feel like if I go back being stronger than ever then that will be good for making sure I don't re-injure things!

Jump Training!

Now I begin jump training, where I begin to train my body to jump and land properly, so when I do begin doing sport activities again my body's muscle memory will be used to doing things the right way. It also gets the body used to jumping again. Apparently you need to do an activity 1,000 times before your body will re-learn something correctly! The jump training is 6 weeks long, and I will begin that next week. It's a pretty tough set of exercises, but now it's both an aerobic sort of workout and also a strength training. Gonna help me get whipped into shape for sure!

4 Months!

I'm at 4 months since the surgery today! Very happy about that! Though I will have to admit that my knee is a little stiff. Probably from the running I did the other day. But overall feeling good. Biking has been my saving grace since I can't really do running all that much. And Saturday and Sunday I do the Tour de Cure where I will be biking 80 miles each day! That will be a good test of my knee! We'll see how I fare. I'll post here how things go!

Don't Over Do it!!! Do as I say, not as I do!

So even though I'm past 3 months after I had my surgery, it's probably not a great idea to overdo the biking too much... I may have done that this past weekend. The doctors advice was to increase the distance that I do slowly so that I know what my limits are. I guess increasing my 20 miles a ride is too much...

I had done 20 and even 40 miles in a day with no problem. This past weekend I did 2+ hours on the stationary bike on Friday, thin 50 miles on Saturday, and then 70 miles on Sunday. Then I did a blistering fast ride on Monday, very hilly, up Mt. Bonel, and after that my knee was sore afterwards. Always felt fine when I was biking, but felt stiff and sore afterwards.

So now I'm taking it easy this week. No more long distance for me until I get to the Tour de Cure at the end of May.

Running!

So about 1 week ago I was able to start running! I had to pass a gruling test to be able to demonstrate to the doctor and physical therapist that I was ready, but I did! Here's what I had to do:

1. 3 minutes of one legged squats with a bungee cord pulling me down. Up one second, down the next.
2. 3 minutes jog in place with bungee pulling me forwards.
3. 3 minutes jog in place with bungee pulling me backwards.
4. 50 reps of jumping sideways with bungee pulling me to the right.
5. 50 reps of jumping sideways with bungee pulling me to the left.

So I was given the clear to start jogging. I was told that running on the treadmill initially was good to reduce impact on the knee. I then later ran on a trail and that felt good. I was also told to not run too long without taking a break and walking. So when I ran on the trail I made sure and walked down the hills to reduce the hard impact on the knee. Feels great so far. And of course the last bit of advice given to me was to stop running if there was any pain in the knee. So happy to be back and able to run after about 10 months! I'm now looking forward to being able to push myself harder and run further!

At this point biking long distances is not a problem and I have been able to do about 40 miles at a very fast pace without having any issues.

Keeping it slow...

I had my second PT appointment this past Friday, which was just after 3 weeks. My range of flexibility had definitely improved a lot, but since I had my appointment at 7 am I hadn't taken the time to stretch ahead of time, so my physio therapist was a little concerned that my flexibility of the ACL in straitening my knee wasn't quite there yet. So now I need to straiten it for 10 minutes 5x a day! So a word of advice for those doing this, stretch first thing in the morning, so when you go in for PT it is a more accurate representation of where you are, rather than the fact that you haven't stretched in over 8 hours because you were sleeping!

I was a little discouraged to find out that I could not bike, walk "for exercise", swim, nor do yoga. So I need to keep in the mindset of keeping it slow and focusing on my physio therapy exercises, which I have been doing very regularly. I found out that I can do water jogging, and now have more PT exercises, and now I can use the stationary bike for 20 minutes a day and can add resistance! So that is good. I don't know much about watter jogging, but I'm going to look into it. I don't care if I look a little silly! :-) I'm really eager to ride my bicycle(s) again! Meet with the doc in a little over a week, so hopefully he can give me the go-ahead then. With the disclaimer of course saying "just don't crash!" :-)

Evening things out...

Coming up on 3 weeks now! Things are still progressing well. Walking pretty well normally without the brace. Still a little uncomfortable extending my leg fully while walking. I've been doing the physio therapy exercises very regularly. The swelling of the knee is pretty well back to what the other leg is, will probably take a while longer till they look the same, but close now.

When I was doing the physio therapy exercises earlier this week, the yoga instructor at the gym stopped in and pointed out that I should be doing the exercises on both legs. At first I didn't think much of it but then realized that I should make sure and do that so that I can keep the strength of both legs the same, or as close as possible. I'm not really able to do any other exercieses besides the physio therapy, so it's important to me that I keep both legs in good condition. One thing that I heard is a lot of athletes will tear the opposite ACL after having surgery... Not necissarily due to not strengthening the opposite leg durring recovery, but probably because they are favoring the oposite leg, putting it harms way more. But it can't hurt to make sure that opposite leg is strong too so that you don't mess up the other one too!