ACL Surgery Recovery - Week 27

So its no secret that the recovery process after ACL surgery on your knee can be long and boring, doing the same exercises every week and only seeing small amounts of progress at a time. It's definitely good to change things up a bit each week if you can. I'm trying to show you different exercises as well as variations to freshen up your weekly routines. Remember before trying anything you see on my blog to get the green light from your physiotherapist.

This late into the recovery process, a lot of people will be running and doing sprinting and cutting drills. These exercises are even good for people who are training to compete in sports such as basketball, soccer, hockey, tennis and more.

A couple weeks back, I showed you how to do the "H Drill" which is really good for your cardiovascular conditioning, reaction time and helps get your knee use to the quick start and stop side to side movements again. This week I'll show you a variation of the "H Drill" and its simply called the "A Drill".

The running pattern is almost similar to the H drill except, obviously, you're running out the pattern of the letter A this time.

Step 1 - your starting point at the bottom on the left hand side. Run the full length up to the top at a good speed and make a quick stop (2).

Step 2 - run backwards as fast as you can to the middle pylon (3)

Step 3 - from the middle pylon, side shuffle to the right across to the other middle pylon (4)

Step 4 - run forwards to the top of the A (5)

Step 5 - now run backwards again all the way to the bottom right (6)

Step 6 - run forwards to the middle pylon (on the right) (7)

Step 7 - from the middle pylon, side shuffle to the left across to the other middle pylon (8)

Step 8 - run backwards back to your starting point (9)

Think that was easy? well add a couple of steps to it before stopping.

Step 9 - side shuffle to the right again to the bottom right pylon (10)

Step 10 - side shuffle back to the starting point (11)

Try this 5-10 time during your workout with a 30 second break in between. Your heart should be pumping pretty good by the time you've done 5 of them. Repeat this drill about 5-10 times depending on what recovery level you're at.

As for my progress, I'm doing running and these cutting drills twice a week. I find my patella area gets a little sore the next day which is probably due to my Jumper's Knee issue. So i make sure that the soreness is totally gone before running again. As far as my running goes, I am up to about 18 minutes of 1 minute sprints and 30 second walking on the treadmill. I'm still not comfortable with flat out running for that period of time without any walking breaks again due to my Jumper's knee issues. I'm being very cautious and if there is any discomfort what so ever, I stop so it doesn't get aggravated again.

That's it for this week's ACL surgery recovery update. If you have any questions, comments or information you'd like to share, feel free to leave them in the comment section below. I always like to hear from people who read my blog and you may also be able to provide helpful information to others at the same time.

Week 26 - ACL Surgery Recovery

Welcome to my ACL surgery recovery blog. I've been going over my recovery process from ACL surgery week by week since May 22nd 2008. In this blog I talk many related knee injury issue and about the exercises I have learned at physiotherapy. Please be sure to consult a medical professional before trying any of the exercises you see on this blog, especially if you yourself are recovery from the same type of knee surgery.

Ive just realized that I've hit the half a year mark since my surgery. 26 weeks. Amazing. Generally, It feels good but there is a lot of hesitation on my part with some of the training. Mainly when I'm trying sharp turns at fast speeds on some of the plyometric cutting drills. Obviously the reason why is because the injury first happened with a similar type of movement. It is something I will have to mentally overcome if I'm going to start playing sports again. If I wasn't planning on going back to sports, I probably would be able to get by at this stage of recovery but it is important to keep up your training.

This week I took it a bit easy as far as running and cutting drills go. I'm still a bit worried about my "Jumper's knee" acting up. I was feeling it a little bit last week so I laid off anything that aggravates it. I am still trying to improve my strength so I'm adding some heavier weights to certain exercises like leg extensions, hamstring curls and backwards lunges.

This week, I've got a new cutting drill for everyone. Please excuse the crudeness of my diagram below. I put it together rather quickly but hopefully you'll get the idea. Its not overly complicated. Basically, you have 2 rows of 4 or 5 pylons set up like the diagram below. The 2 rows are about 15 feet apart from each other. Starting at the bottom and following the arrowed lines, you want to start by running at top speed around the pylon immediately to the left, then turn and run to the pylon on the right. Repeat this pattern without stopping until you get to the last pylon and then run at top speed down the middle back to your starting point. It was suggested physio that I do 5 of these to my routine with a 30 second rest in between.

Well, that's all I have this week. Remember, to ice and elevate your knee after doing your exercise routines to keep the swelling down and don't forget to add in some massaging to break up the scar tissue. Doing these little things consistently will help you in the long run.

On a side, but related note, If you follow NHL hockey at all as I do, the latest ACL injury to occur happened to Dallas Stars forward Brendan Morrow who snapped his ACL yesterday and is now projected to be out of action for 6 months which will mean he misses the rest of the NHL season.

Thanks for reading my ACL Surgery Recovery blog. If you have any questions, comments or would like to share your similar experience, please feel free to leave a comment. Also, don't forget to check the "Blog Archive" on the left hand side of your screen to see any of my previous posts.

Week 25 - ACL Surgery Recovery

Welcome to my ACL surgery recovery blog. If you're about to have, or have just had your ACL surgically repaired and are looking to get an idea of what the recovery stage is like, you've come to the right place. One the left hand side of your screen (Scroll down a bit), you'll see a Blog Archive that goes through my personal recovery stage week by week. Hopefully some of you will find this information some what helpful. Its hard to think during the first week or two after knee surgery that you'll ever get your knee back to the condition it was in prior to your surgery but with a lot of hard work and proper direction from a physiotherapist, it is almost certainly possible.

I'm up to week 25 and generally the knee feels pretty good. This past week I've incorporated 3 days of treadmill running into my routine, but only 10 minutes. I will run for 1 minute and walk for 30 seconds and repeat. Yesterday I increased the running to 13 minutes at my physio appointment. My knee is a little sore the next day but not too bad. I still feel the jumper's knee a little bit which is expected. That's not something that goes away quickly apparently. I don't plan on pushing it too much more until the Jumper's knee is not bothering me at all anymore.

I'll go over a new "cutting" drill that I've learned at physio this past week. If you're currently in the post surgery recovery stage, please don't try this unless you've got a medical professionals consent. If you're knee is not at a stage where it's not strong enough to handle these kinds of movementes, you may re-injure it.

This drill is simply called the "H" Drill. I've drawn up a rough diagram below of how it is performed. This drill is great for people who are trying to get back into sports like basketball, soccer, tennis just to name a few sports. It will help your surgically repaired knee get use to quick start & stop running and cuts again.

Line up 2 rows of 3 pylons. Each pylon in each row is about 15 feet apart and the 2 rows are about 20 feet apart from each other.

Step 1 - your starting point at the bottom of the row on the left hand side. Run the full length of the row at a good speed and make a quick stop (2).

Step 2 - run backwards as fast as you can to the middle pylon (3)

Step 3 - from the middle pylon, side shuffle to the right across to the other row's middle pylon (4)

Step 4 - run forwards to the top of the row (5)

Step 5 - now run backwards again all the way to the bottom of the row (6)

Step 6 - run forwards to the middle pylon (7)

Step 7 - from the middle pylon, side shuffle to the left across to the other row's middle pylon (8)

Step 8 - run backwards back to your starting point (9)

Repeat this drill about 5-10 times depending on what recovery level you're at.

That's it for this week. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of this blog.

Thanks for reading my ACL Surgery Recovery blog. Be sure to check back next week for another update.

ACL Surgery Recovery - Week 23 & 24

Welcome to my ACL knee surgery recovery blog where I have been giving week by week updates on my recovery process since my anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction surgery.

If you're new to my blog, check out the blog archive on the left hand side to read through my previous posts.


Week 23 did not see much progress or difference in my workout. Frustrated, i decided to add some additional stretching and massaging to my routine.

If you've been following my blog you'll know that I've developed jumper's knee in my patella tendon after my knee surgery and I've been struggling with it for quite some time. The strength in my knee is improving on a weekly basis but the jumper's knee issue is a tough hurdle to get over. Quadriceps stretches are really suppose to help so I've decided to increase the frequency in which i do these stretches.

This is your basic Quad stretch (above). Grab a hold of your ankle and bring it up behind you. If you're stretching your left side, use your left hand. Right side - right hand. Use the opposite arm for support if need as in the figure above. Then, as the arrow shows, slightly swing your leg, using your hip backwards. Do NOT perform this stretch using your opposite hand. Remember - left leg, left hand, right leg, right hand. Hold the stretch for 30 seconds, repeat 3 times. For those who would like to try more advanced stretches, check the pictures below.

The other thing i started doing more of this week was simple massaging of the patella tendon. Massaging increases blood flow through the tendon. The proper way for you to massage the patella tendon is in a left - right movement in the area where you feel the pain. NOT up and down or in a circular motion. Just left to right.

So now I'm at week 24 post ACL surgery and my therapist decided that right from the start we would try running drills first and she was going to try taping up my knee again before we started. Taping the knee is suppose to help reduce the pain. We had tried it before by it i found in the past it did not help much. Well, this time it was a lot different. I actually made some progress. Very little pain doing forwards and backwards running drills. Then i went to the treadmill and did 1 minute jogs with 30 second intervals of walking in between. Surprisingly no pain. I did this for 8 minutes and could have kept going but my therapist did not want to push it.

So finally some progress to report. I think it was all a combo of the massaging, extra quad stretches and taping up the knee that really helped in the last two weeks. Hopefully, I'll have more progress over the course of the week as i do my daily routines. If my knee holds up, next week, i'll be trying a few more running and cutting type drills at physio which i will report on shortly after.

Thanks for reading my ACL surgery recovery blog. Please feel free to post a comment or question and I'll try to respond.