At this point in time, I'm about 2.5 weeks out from surgery. To be quite honest, my leg is feeling great, all things considered. I'm feeling great walking around. After a while of sitting at my desk at work, I'm only a little stiff-legged at first, but it gets better after taking about 10 steps or so. Every once in a while, I completely forget that my knee has had a major surgery recently. The scabs from the incisions are almost gone, and I think I won't really have any scars to speak of long term. It's truly amazing how far this type of surgery has come.
My physical therapist continually tells me to take it easy, and he really emphasizes it. So I'm doing my best to maintain that for his sanity. The first day I went in, I had told him I was on the elliptical for 20 minutes, and he made me stop that right away. However, I can't let it completely stop me from keeping up some sort of cardio.
My first real session was last night. I consider it a real session because I was actually doing mobile things and pushing my knee. Mostly I'm working on range of motion and getting back some of my muscle, especially in my quads. I can definitely notice the difference from my left knee to right in terms of muscle structure. The big thing I'm working on now is to stop any possibility of muscle atrophy in that right quad. So, throughout the day I'm doing quad sets to tighten the muscle and keep it activated as much as possible. By the end of the work day, it's honestly pretty sore. But I know it's from how much I'm working it, and not from any sort of damage.
I was also working on some balancing on my right leg, which felt good. I would put all of my weight on my right leg, while moving my left leg out in front, to the side, and to the back for sets of ten each. I'm pretty positive I'm ahead of the game, as this we really easy and I didn't feel any pain or any sort of fatigue from it.
Another exercise was some walking butt-kickers. Not the typical loosening up your muscles and joints kind, but just to activate the hamstring and again, work on some range of motion. This one felt good for me as well. I can really feel how much more I have to go when I compare my right to left. But, it still feels good doing some actual work to get back to 'normal'.
With all that being said, and my physical therapist's ideas on training, I'm really thinking of getting back into the pool and pushing my cardio a bit. It's been too long, and I truly don't feel it's going to hurt anything. However, I will check with him and explain my thought process and the type of swimming I will be doing. Being a triathlete, I especially use my upper-body during the swim phase, saving my legs for the other portions of the race. I still need to invest in a pull-buoy, though. That would take even more pressure of my legs and focus my swimming on form and upper body work.
I go back again tonight, and I'm already looking forward to it, just to see what I get to do next. Hopefully there's some more time on the bike!
Dave
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