I thought it was about time I provided another update so here goes. It has been an interesting two weeks so apologies it’s a long one…
After the incident with the Not So Great Dane and subsequent treadmill issues, I decided to take it easy for a while to give the knee chance to settle down. I did nothing for a few days then got back on the bike towards the end of the week and did a few step up/downs, quad sets, straight leg raises etc. to get things moving.
Things took an unexpected turn on the Friday when white van man decided he couldn’t wait while the lady at the front of a queue of traffic waved me across in front of her to turn right into a petrol station (she was also about to turn right, hence being stationary at that point). Instead of waiting in line, white van man decided to create a completely new lane of traffic on the pavement, ploughing up the inside of the traffic on the road and straight into my car while he busily hurled abuse at the lady at the front of the queue. Thankfully I’d spotted him and stopped, so he hit almost head on as he swung back into the road rather than driving straight into my rear passenger door, where my little girl was sitting, so I’ll focus on the positives for now and just refer to him as a Banker...
Thankfully, no-one was badly hurt, it was all caught on the petrol station’s CCTV, and the staff at Sainsbury’s Droitwich and witnesses who stopped were great with the little one – she must have thought it was her birthday given the fuss they made of her and the number of free chocolate cookies that came her way.
Anyway, the car definitely bore the brunt of it and was eventually towed away, leaving us to find a taxi home. Unfortunately, as we had the usual post-accident stiffening up later in the day, any further gym activity went out of the window for the weekend.
By Monday I’d taken delivery of a shiny new BMW convertible as the hire car replacement for my car. (Yes, I am now THAT person, pratting about with the convertible roof and getting caught between sunshine and showers - pray for consistent sunshine over the next few days, will you?) Not long after it arrived, I headed out to the gym to give it a test drive. Why am I talking about a car on an ACL blog? Because it’s a three door, not a five door, and those doors are bigger and heavier than the one's I'm used to. Being paranoid about banging the car next to me when getting out in the car park, I didn’t open the door wide enough and, as I swung my legs round to get out, back came the door, slam into my knee.
I promise, I’m not making this up!!
I really can’t think of anything else that could conspire to damage this knee but if anyone who knows me sees me out and about without being wrapped in bubble wrap or cotton wool over the next few weeks, shout at me and send me home again, will you?
It took a good 24 hours for the knee to settle down again and I finally got back into the gym on Wednesday. I’ve started running again and can make it to 15 minutes run walk before the knee starts complaining (shooting pains through the middle) so I’m splitting the 30 mins cardio with the bike for a while. I have managed to boost the pace of the running interval to 6mph though so hopefully I can get some cardio benefit, get back up to 30 minutes and then start decreasing the walking intervals so I’m finally back up to 5km before the end of the month.
With a week of incident-free activity under my belt, it's fair to say the knee does shift a bit day to day but it doesn’t feel like it’s going to give way, so I suspect that’s just the way it’s going to be from now on. Low level soreness is the new norm with tightness down the IT band (possible side effect of Mac procedure?), sore lateral hamstring tendon (been an issue almost from day one post op), stinging on medial side and anteriorly beneath the knee cap. Hopefully some of that will settle down as it gets used to being used again but, if all else fails, there’s always ice. I almost don’t care anymore. I just want to get back to ‘normal’ and get some fitness back.
On that subject, after joining the gym in November last year, I finally had my formal induction this week (didn’t see the point arranging anything until I could do more than basic physio). The PT who did the session has a background in sports rehab so we’re focusing on getting more strength back into my leg and moving on to agility / proprioception work.
I can now add squats on the bosu, lateral step overs on the bosu, backwards lunges and side steps in squat with a theraband round my legs to my standard workout. My next session is next week so not too much time to get bored either.
One thing he did notice, almost straight away, was that my glutes aren’t firing in any of the above which, he said, means my knee is taking a lot more of the strain than it should be. I can only take what he says at face value but it does leave me asking, how the heck am I now nearly 18 months post surgery and no-one else has spotted this? If I can get that working properly, are some of the other ongoing issues finally going to start resolving themselves? I flippin’ hope so!
Thinking back, it was getting back in the gym with my PT that made a real difference getting strength and functionality back after my first ACL surgery but what do people who don’t go the gym do to make a full recovery? Getting signed off by physio just seems to leave you with so much ground still to make up but no actual guidance how to get there. Do other people genuinely get good results just stopping once they’ve got onto squats/lunges or are my expectations too high? I did ask about agility drills etc. before I finished physio this time but was told that they’d only do that if ‘my sport’ required it. I’m not being funny but surely full function means the ability to do whatever someone with a ‘normal’ knee would be able to do (near enough)? Just because I was only running and going to the gym before the original graft failed, that doesn’t mean that’s all I want to be capable of doing ever again. And if we’re only aiming for half a result, why bother having the surgery at all? One to mull...
Anyway, a quick google of ‘activating glutes acl’ on my return, quickly led me to this series of ACL rehab videos, which look pretty decent, hence the share (There are six in the series - I'll put them all on the Resources page).
I’m mainly at stage 4, although there’s quite a bit of the basic stuff in stages 2 & 3 that we haven’t covered so I may go over those too. I'm conscious, of course, that it can be a dangerous game following online videos that take no account of your individual circumstances but in the absence of other information, what are you supposed to do? Obviously I don't suggest you follow these without input from your own medical team. I'm not going to be doing everything here but I know there are gaps in what I've done that I need to fill, even if only at a basic level.
On a more positive note, having whinged previously that the diet wasn’t working and I was putting on more weight, I finally plucked up the courage to use the Boditrax machine at our gym a couple of weeks ago and the results were much more encouraging. I’ve lost the weight and body fat I’d put on in the first two weeks and, after repeating the measurements today, I’ve lost another 3lbs, body fat is one percentage point down and, best of all, it reckons my metabolic age is 28!!! Given my birthday later this month says otherwise (by about 10 years) I think I may have to celebrate that win…. with cake. Cheers!