What training have you done today?

[celinenj03]

My current routine at a year out is:

Wake up and stationary cycle for 10 mins. Go outside for a 1 mile walk. Hit the gym do:

10 mins. stationary cycle with resistance
10 mins. eliptical
10 mins. walking on treadmill with incline

Hit the weights:

Hips (in and out) 3 sets 160lbs. x 15
Leg Press 3 sets 15 x 50lbs.
Hamstring Curls. 3 sets 70lbs. x 15
Leg Extension (only 10-15 lbs.) for 3 sets of 15 but I am working to build up the weight
Squats with a ball behind my back against the wall 3 sets of 10
Calf raises (usually do them all day long)
Step ups and side step ups (as many as it takes to feel a good burn)
Superman where you lay on the floor on your stomach and lift left arm and right leg then vice versa. 3 sets of 50. These are tough!
Bicycle on the floor for abs for 5 minutes

Come home and more stationary cycling or riding with my daughter on the back of the bike outside for 20 mins. or more.

I still need to get more VMO exerices in my routine but overall the workout is working and oddly my op. leg is now bigger than my other leg.

[henri]

celinenj, that seems quite hard workout. Do you do this daily? I mean, even leg press weight is similar to my weight, altough i usually do about 10-15 sets with 180 lbs,  about 60 each set
Today i did lots of hamstring curls with 30 kg-s, i think it was about 300-400 hamstring curls. Then i did about 700 leg press. Then squat standing against the wall , holding about 15 kg-s weight as long as i could. And then hundreds of leg extensions with no weight.
As the exams are over for few weeks and i have more free time now, i am probably going to cycle about 30 km-s tomorrow.
The best thing is, that i finally see some improvement, specially in daily walking. Altough i still have pain(tweaks), my knee feels stronger and less wobbly with each day
Muscle size and strenght DOES matter in knee stability. Unfortunately i didnt realize it sooner,  how important muscle strenght actually is.

[the_player]

Henri - When you do your leg press/extensions/hamstring curls, just as a matter of interest do you do both legs or just the operated leg ?  (Or do you do each one in turn ?)

[henri]

I do leg press and hamstring curls with 2 legs and leg extensions only with operated legs. When i add some weight to leg extensions i use both legs.

[Kaputt_Knee]

I'm just back from my rehab centre. I started at 07:00 this morning with a massage and then moved on to 1 to 1 physiotherapy where my therapist worked today primarily on the flexion. I then went through my strength building and coordination training routines:

Warm-up: 30 minutes stationary bike at 40 Watts resistance and 80 rpm

Strength work out:  100 times Abductor with 36 kgs 100 times Adductor with 27kgs. Leg Press using a Shuttle bed with 3 resistance elastics 100 per leg; then I up the anti to 6 elastics for 100 with both legs. For that I also add an air filled cushion as it helps with the proprioception. I have to work on spine and upper body as well to maintain a balance so again low weights high repetitions. This is supplemented by 100 times 20 kgs on the "dips" machine. For the quads in particular I then have a sitting leg press 36kgs 100 times per leg and for the hamstrings I do 100 leg curls with 27 kgs. Again nearly all low weight and high sets of repetitions. Between each set of 20 I have a 30 second recovery break.

Coordination work: 100 metres on my funny little pedalo wagon in a skier's stance i.e. weight forward over the toes, knees and ankles bent. This is followed by 100 knee dips on each knee while standing on the airtex cushion (5x20) and rounded off with trampoline work balancing on one leg on a trampoline and passing a ball around my body in both directions. All the coordination work is done bare foot in order to help with the proprioception!

In between we are encouraged to stretch and keep flexible and warm while waiting to use the machines. there are 5 or 6 Sports specialists floating around all the time checking that we are doing everything correctly and adding or taking off weights according to the need.

Cool down is 20 minutes walking on the treadmill with an incline of 10° concentrating on posture and full rolling of the foot through the steps.

When that is all finished I go get a coffee in the coffee shop before getting into the pool and doing my workout there for an hour plus. The day usually finishes with a session of lymph drainage massage to help reduce the swelling that I still have in the knee.

On Sunday I did my first bike ride outside - 20 kms along the banks of the River Inn using low resistance and resting frequently. Now the bike is in the back of my car ready for the next trip!

The rehab centre is 5 days a week and then I do workouts at home at the weekends. I am really lucky as my local rehab centre is one of the best in southern Germany and currently where two of the German Winter Sports team are also doing rehab. We had the TV cameras there today filming them which made it a wee bit hotter than usual because of the lights etc. What is really nice is that the two, Anne-Marie Gerg and Michael Uhrmann, are so natural and easy to talk to. It's a great incentive to all of us and also they say for them as well. Michi has a wicked sense of humour and Anne-Marie likes to play practical jokes as well.

Now I'm going to cool the knee and catch up on some ZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzs

Sue

[celinenj03]

OMG Henri! That was a typo!!! I hope I didn't mess anyone up with that. On leg press I have only went up to 70lbs (back to 50 cause I missed a month of the gym). I am afraid to do more as I increase gradually I will get there.

I meant 160lbs. on the abductor and adductor machine for hips!

Henri your workout seems very very good. I like the way you do a lot of reps. If I had more time, I would do that too. On the leg extension I am only doing 10 sometimes 15lbs. but I do a lot of reps if I have time. It is fairly safe I believe as I've never had any trouble. The kneecap occasionally tweaks if it is not in the right position. I solve this by doing a set of 15 reps with no weight to engage the VMO then it usually fires and pulls the kneecap in the right place so I can continue with my other sets.

I do this workout 4 times a week on the other days I am doing a lot of cardio and mini squats and one legged squats and a mixture of other things. Bascially I do workout in some fashion every day as I've learned that it really helps keep pain and tweaks at bay.

Keep it up Henri you will be AMAZED at the relief you will feel in another month. It does take time, but it really does help the knee a lot!

All the best,

[henri]

Had a PT lesson today and 30 km cycle ride in the evening.
One of the things i am worried, is that my so called PT is qualified and everything, but she said, that i am her first acl guy. And she puts me doing some strange things sometimes. For example today i had to stand up from sitting position, i am ok to do this on 2 legs, but i also had to do this with one leg. Can anyone comment about this? She said its closed chain exercise and safe thing to do, on the other hand i remember that i think it was kai who said, that the one with operated acl graft should be careful when standing up from sitting position. Go figure
I am now going to have about 3 weeks off from every exercise. over 2 weeks travelling and 1 week full of uni(exams and praxis). Then going to return. I try to fix my posture and walking when abroad. Who knows, maybe i can do some balancing exercises and some other stuff when hanging in some island beach

[John Foy]

Some good stuff going on gang.

Today I did six sets of 100 metre sprints on the track with 3 minutes rest in between. I am really working on my sprint speed for next football season.

Than a bit later I played a two hour game of football with nine of my mates.


My legs are really stiff now!

Knee feels great!!!

[henri]

Did some gym job today. Mostly upper body.
One thing i still find rather difficult , is running, even jogging. I have tried to do this, but it feels so unnatural/strange, that i have stopped it. I know that if i want to return football sometime in the future, i have to start jogging and also sprinting, but even now , 16 months post op i still cant see myself running normally. I have this psychological efect, where i hold my knee so that it wouldnt hyperextend on some uneven ground, even when walking. When i get past this, i think i can start jogging again, and then maybe, sprinting. Still, as feeny said, i dont find running the best way of training after i have had meniscus removal and acl reconstruction. But i want to do this again, for example when i am attacked by some brick again, i can atleast run away and not get beaten up again.

[Baseball_Canada_21]

7 weeks post op
30 minutes on bike at varying resistances
3 x 10 two legged squats with 10lbs weights
3 x 10 single legged squats
lots of stairs
get to start running next weeks so there is something to look forward to

[henri]

baseball_canada, do you do one legged squats also with your injured leg? and are those squats full squats or mini squats( do you go past 90 degrees of flexion?)?

[Kai]

I did my 3 hours of Taekwando...  yesterday, I worked in the heat unloading 3 trucks...  coupled with an hour of TKD I guess I got dehydrated..  I was hit with cramps in the inner thighs ... severe ones....   I have a high pain threshold and these ones had me wailing...  muscles tender for hours afterward...    I was ok today tho.. had the day off from work... so was able to put in the time at the DOJANG..  made me happy...

good exercising to all of you....

[celinenj03]

Kai, I also try to incorporate my every day things into my exercise program and that keeps me working my legs throughout the day. I think it's really brilliant that you can use your job to work out. I use every day household chores to continue working out. If I'm pushing my daughter on the swing, I am in a lunge position putting all the weight on the op knee to get a muscle burn, things like that.

Henri, I've been thinking about your posts. How are you hamstrings? Are they really built up? That should give you more support and confidence and an overall tighter feeling in the knee.

I think it's normal for the knee to feel weakest when it is in full extension until you have built all the muscles back.

Also, running and jogging isn't feeling very normal for me yet either, though it is getting better. I can do it with no limp and for some time, but it feels "wooden" still as people have reported here, so that means I need to build more muscle to cushion the force better.

[henri]

Nope, my hamstrings are still weak compared to good knee and they dont still give me this tighter feeling as my better leg has. But i am working towards this. Thats the reason i keep doing those hamstring exercises. I also hope, that stronger hamstrings and leg muscles give me stronger feeling.
The reason i still have so weak hamstrings,  is that i didnt do no hamstring exercises for about 8 months after the rehab, and another 6 months prior to this, so you can imagine in what contition my hamstrings were. I have seen some improvement, but it takes time and patients.

[John Foy]

Today I am 77 weeks post op and I did:

1 football match - we got stuffed 4 -2
Then
A 5K row on a concept 2 rowing machine.


How far post op are you and what training did you do today?