A knee knows

I tore the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in my left knee skiing at Mt. Wachusett in central Mass. on January 18, 2007. This is a common injury to weekend warriors like myself, so I thought others might like to know what happens once you've done something unfortunate like this to your body. Maybe you've injured yourself too, and feel like the game's over. However, you can return to your sport -- you just need to stay focused and do the work.

Here's where it started...



Monday, November 12, 2007

Knee's to do list

Since having my type II SLAP repair about 5 weeks ago (right shoulder), the knee has not been top-of-mind. No surprise. But I've let the shoulder recovery derail my conditioning. Time to take care of business.

Today, I resolved to get back into a workout regimen. So today at lunch I did the following:
  • Single leg squat (a.k.a., one leg lunge) 4 sets of 10 each.
  • Theraband hamstring curls, 3x10.
  • Dumbell squats, 4x10.
  • Romanian dead lifts, 4x10. I realize now I've been doing them wrong, fortunately without lifting too much weight.


Because my autograft was taken from my left hamstring, it's basically shot. I'd guess I have about half the strength of the right leg. Otherwise, the knee is feeling great, and invariably, even if I feel some clicking or other noise during my workout, the knee tends to stabilize and start feeling even better during and after the workout.

Coming down the stairs, my legs were a little shaky so I know I got a good workout, but realized I have a long way to go, a long way. All I can do is work the lower body while doing PT on my shoulder, and hopefully start being able to strengthen the shoulder soon. Range of motion is already pretty good, but it's very weak.