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.