ACL Recovery Log #13 – 10 Weeks Post Op

This past weekend I celebrated my 35^th birthday! The weather was beautiful, and I was able to get outside and ride the bike! Jordan and I decided to ride with some friends (while maintaining a safe distance) on the Vischer Ferry trail. Since it’s not far from our house we thought it would be a nice place to ride since it’s flat. But everyone else had the same idea—the trail was crowded in some spots.

We wore our buffs that we pulled up whenever we passed other people. But the number of people NOT wearing face-covering was surprising. We rode 7 miles out and back—on the last few miles I got a flat tire. I’ve never actually gotten a flat while riding my gravel bike, but I guess there’s a first time for everything! We were close to the car, so Jordan just rode there and then picked me up. I do have the ability to change a flat but since we were so close it just made more sense do it at home. We were able to plug the puncture in the tire, so it holds air for short rides…but I have a new tire on the way. I have a new post-op cycling distance of 12.8 miles! My knee felt great for the entire ride.

Jordan’s birthday present to me this year was exciting: my own kayak! It’s a Liquid Logic Remix XP10- a crossover kayak that he found on sale at Mountain Man Outfitters. It’s gorgeous!

We spent the rest of the afternoon at Grafton so I could test it out. It’s fantastic!  I can’t wait to put it to good use this summer. We ended the celebration with Thai food takeout and ice cream pie from The Snowman. Perfect!

Knee Update

I’m still going to PT 2x per week and doing a solid lower body workout routine at home, so overall doing my rehab about 4x per week with cycling and upper body workouts added in.

• Extension: -4
• Flexion: 125 (this varies depending on how stiff my knee is that day)
• Single-leg press-65 lbs on the surgical leg (2x 12 reps)
• Hamstring curl machine-15 lbs on the surgical leg (2x 12 reps)
• 25 lb kettlebell goblet squat
• 25 lb kettlebell RDLs
• 10 lb dumbbell single-leg RDLs – this is EXTREMELY challenging for me, mostly because of the feeling of instability on my injured leg, so I usually end up dropping the weights
  
• BOSU squats with a 15 lb kettlebell
• Walking lunges with 12 lb dumbells

I’m also continuing the exercises I wrote about in my previous post.