Finally able to move

During PT day before yesterday, we worked through the usual set of exercises, including:

• 10 minute warm up on the bike
• Hamstring curls on the slide board
• Weighted bends on the involved leg

Afterwards, my PT, John, introduced a set of ladder drills. The ladder is a sectioned length of nylon webbing. You lay it down, and do in-and-out movement drills down its length through each box. So for the first time since the procedure on March 9, I was doing athletic lateral movements, first frontwards, then backwards, with cross-over moves, in both directions.



The link above shows an example called the Icky Shuffle that is like what I was doing, except that the PT wanted me to rotate my hips rather than keeping them facing forward as in the video. This made the motion quite a bit more like skiing, and allowed me to get a lot more lateral distance off the ladder than is shown in the Icky Shuffle video. We also did a version of the Billy Simms shuffle, but again with some hip rotation and as a result, greater distance off the center.

I was able to get a pretty good pace going, and felt very comfortable increasing the dynamic angle of my legs as I transitioned from one side to the other. Later in the day, I went out on the tennis court and hit with one of my former teammates and felt about 75-80% of normal out there. So things progressing well on the knee. Later, someone wanted me to hit on a hard court, and I declined. That might fall into the category of what my PT John would call "doing something stupid."

I was still favoring the leg a bit, but managed to hit with pace and spin. I reached most balls successfully without too much hesitation -- better laterally than up and back. The main difference from hitting last week was the degree of comfort I felt out there. I had enough confidence that I wouldn't wreck the knee that I was able to move quite a bit more freely than I had allowed myself to this point.

Even better -- next day, the knee felt great.

I've got about three weeks before surgery for the SLAP lesion in my right shoulder. Hopefully in that time, the upstairs bathroom will be more or less complete, but that's a whole other story. May have to adapt this blog for the shoulder recovery, depending on if I wind up getting a Level 1 or Level 2 repair, the former involving essentially a debrading of a ragged edge, but not a significant repair. Repairing a Level 2 tear will mean 6 months before playing again. I'm pretty sure it'll wind up being the L2.

So proceeds the year without tennis.

4 months post-op

Rehab has been going well. I've dropped off daily exercises somewhat, favoring the occasional bike ride, working outside in the yard, and some light hitting on the tennis court. About three weeks ago I was cleared to start hitting tennis balls again, so the same day, I found someone to hit with. I wore a basic knee brace, just as a reminder, and managed to move about rather stiffly, though without any discomfort pretty well. The next day, no real affects -- no pain, no swelling. Feeling good.

Last weekend, I played some doubles, what I like to call "social tennis" and also felt good. I served very gingerly (shoulder procedure coming up in August for SLAP tear). I moved better, not as stiffly, but was very careful not to push it too hard by going for wide, deep, or short balls unless they were easy to reach. I especially wanted to get out there before I have the shoulder procedure next month (4 weeks to go), after which I don't think I'll even be lifting a beer with the involved shoulder for three weeks.

I can go for several days now and realize I haven't given my knee a single moment of thought, which is a good indication how solid and normal it feels. I'm ready to start some light running on grass inside the oval at the high school track. At PT, I'm doing two-legged and also one-legged hopping over low bicycle handle-like hurdles. The idea is to land softly, with as vertical a calf as possible, with butt out and weight centered.

In the meantime, I've been remodeling my upstairs bathroom, which means a lot of work on my knees working on the floor. This has mostly been tolerable, though there are some positions with my involved knee that are uncomfortable. No big deal though, and again, no day-after affects, soreness or stiffness.

So, going forward: Increase tennis until I have to go in for my shoulder. Also, start doing more weight work at the gym, especially after the shoulder procedure. Because of the autograft, my involved leg hamstring is about 50% as strong as my right leg, and I need to build up that strength to help stabilize and protect my reconstructed knee, especially if I'm going to be doing any skiing this year (haven't decided).