Wow, I can’t believe it has been half a year since my last proper update. I’ve added a few bits and pieces to the resources pages over that time - including some interesting interviews with sportsmen on injuries and psychology and am currently listening to the Shift Podcast on nutrition etc while typing away. Some interesting thoughts on body image, food, injury and psychology in gymnastics, including the trend to weigh young gymnasts and measure their body fat, the concept that ‘small is best’ and links between nutrition and injury. There’s a huge amount I could say about many of the issues covered in this podcast but I’ll just leave the link here for those it’s of interest to. Legacy.
Anyway, back to the knee journey.
Well, as suggested in my last blog, I did get myself some swimming lessons at the start of the year and can now swim front crawl with proper breathing and everything. Yeay! I’m not very good at it, it’s very much a work in progress, but I can now manage a 20-30 minute swimming session without inhaling most of the pool in the process, so that’s a good thing. The knee seems to have no objections to it and I actually get out of breath so that’s a real positive in the mission to regain some fitness and maybe shed the last of this baby weight (no, the cake pass isn’t helping, I admit, but one thing at a time, right?)
Having had around 10 weeks of lessons, I took a bit of a break from it and have been making more use of the gym (HIIT training, minus any high impact). I also had a brief flirtation with starting running again…
One of the school Mums announced that she is taking part in Running Down Dementia and, along with asking for sponsorship, asked if some of us other Mums would join her for a few runs on the way.
Now, I know I promised I wasn’t going to do any running until six months after I’d finished feeding the baby but, well, the temptation was too great. At 13 months, the feeding is almost at an end - 12 months was my goal - and, while I know the relaxin is still at play, I’m pretty bored of the workouts I’ve been doing and wanted to see how the land lay. For context, when I first started running properly around a decade ago, none of my friends were in any way into running so, in the end, I just had to head out on my own. Headspace is good but sometimes, it would be nice to have some company too and, as I’m not at the school gate all that much, it’s also a nice way to get to know people better. Apparently, quite a few of the school Mums run so joining one of them for a couple of short trips seemed like a good opportunity to start slowly with someone at my own level and see how it went.
To test the water, I started out with a treadmill run - one minute run, 30 second walk - and got unto 3km pretty easily. Thank you MummyFIT for allowing me to maintain some semblance of cardio fitness over the last two years! Yes, the knee, my hamstring and achilles were a bit sore afterwards but nothing you wouldn’t expect when you haven’t run for quite a while.
So, the following week, I met up with school Mum at a local park and we went for a run:walk there too. Absolutely loved it - even got told off for going too quickly and she encouraged me to join her and another Mum for a ParkRun soon. Trying really hard to hold myself back, I decided that if I could do one short run a week, that would be enough to scratch the itch without annoying the knee too much so the following week, I did another treadmill run. And then I had to stop as flippin’ pelvic girdle pain kicked in again. Gargh!!!!
After taking it easy for a few weeks, the PGP has continued to be a problem - at its worst when I’ve had my little boy for the day (he’s not a small lad and chasing after/hoiking around 13kg of 13 month old with considerable climbing abilities and no sense of danger seems to cause the most issues). However, it’s also causing discomfort if I walk too far, stand on one leg when getting changed or push a shopping trolley/buggy around, so there has been no option but to go and see a specialist women’s health physio to see if they can help.
Which brings me back to the ACL and some things to look out for for anyone who’s rehabbing an ACL injury.
After a very thorough review, the physio identified a non-functioning gluteus medius and a crazy tight psoas muscle on the ACL leg side; both of which she thinks are a result of my body trying to compensate for the dodgy knee. That has resulted in my pelvis being pulled out of alignment and becoming unstable. So while the psoas muscle is working overtime to make up for the unstable knee and non-fuctioning glute med, my poor pregnancy-ravaged abs are also working over time to try to stabilise my pelvis and it’s no surprise that the PGP pain has flared up again the moment I’ve started doing anything more high-impact activity-wise.
In short, we’re now in the territory of ‘The Chain’ - officially the longest listener-generated thematically-linked sequence of musically-based items on the radio (oh no, that’s something else…) or ODTAA (one damned-thing after another), as my great Uncle (may he rest in peace) used to say.
So, where to from here?
One balanced step at at time, starting with strengthening my gluteus medius. Clam exercises (which I am currently utterly pathetic at), side leg raises and resistance band exercises. I’m told I am (almost literally) going to have to work my arse off and it’s going to take time. Well, I’ve got another six months of relaxin in my system to contend with so, I guess, there’s no time like the present.
In the meantime, the knee scores on the doors are better than they’ve been for a while!!
CKS - 55
OKS - 33
IKDC - 54