Prev - Week 23 | Next - 3.5 years
ACL Surgery Recovery - 7 months
November 16th, 2003
Hmmmmm. 7 months later. Aren't I supposed to be fully healed by now? I am still not playing soccer. Every time I work out or exercise hard, my leg gets sore for 2-3 days after. I have trouble locking my injured knee all the way out when i'm putting weight on it. Today I went to the gym and rode a bike for 30 minutes on high resistance, hopefully that will help.
I took a bunch of high intensity yoga classes and that seemed to help the flexibility greatly. The only problem is that after I leave the class, my flexibility goes away. Also, after stretching my knee so deeply in the yoga class, I feel that soreness that I was talking about earlier. The good news is, I could sit on my heels japanese style in the yoga class for a while... the next day I couldn't do it so well. I think I have learned the way to go deeper into stretches.. you have to not fear the pain. When you are afraid, you tense up and can't stretch as deeply. If you relax and just let your body stretch naturally with no resistance, it actually hurts less. Maybe that lesson can be applied to every day life with a reconstructed ACL.
I'm getting kind of worried that it will never heal fully because it gets weak every time I work out. Only time will tell, I guess I should just work it more and it will get used to the soreness. Maybe I should call my doctor, but he usually gives me really vague answers.
I hate straining my knee. I know it will be just fine in 2 more days, but I can't do heavy activity unless i want it to be sore again. At least it's much better than 3 months ago. I think I need to try to run again with the brace on to get some motion and confidence back.
Prev - Week 23 | Next - 3.5 years