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.