Day 23 -Physical Therapy and Gym Workout

6/10/2009
Day 23 of Physical Therapy - w/out knee brace

Today the knee felt great going into Physical Therapy, probably the best it's felt since surgery and the results from physical therapy proved it. Started out by riding the stationary bike for 5 minutes for a warm-up and then went into stabilization and one-legged balancing exercises. We did some new balancing exercises of throwing a ball back and forth while on one leg on a foam board. At first it was difficult since this was new to me, but after a few throws back and forth the balance started to slowly come back.

We continued onto the regular exercise ball squats, one-legged leg press (100 lbs - 30ish total reps), and then went to another new exercise with resistance bands. First, we did two 20-yard high knee walks while the physical therapist provided resistance with the elastic bands. Then we followed this up by a side-step, squat, side-step exercise for 20-yards, turned around and did it back. This exercise really encouraging knowing that side to side movement was beginning to come back without pain or any give in the ACL.

Finished up the session with wall slides (128 degrees of flex), weighted leg raises, and extension stretching (0 degrees extension).

Day 23 Working Out - w/out knee brace
Followed a great day of physical therapy with a great work out in the evening. I started out on the elliptical for 12 minutes running forwards and in reverse. Elliptical has become a favorite of mine, I really feel it in the quads and hips without impact on the knee. This was the best sweat in over a month and a half. I continued on to do some very light, high rep lower body circuit (leg extension, leg press, smith machine squats, wall sits). I'm really concentrating on low-weight, high reps just to build endurance back into the leg muscles, while working on flexibility. Finished out with some upper body lifts since this was my 4th time in the gym in the last 4 weeks (none in last 12 days).