The We are in uncertain times right now, California just ordered an entire state "shelter in place" due to the coronavirus pandemic. Nothing as severe has been in place for my state yet, but it could be coming. Husband and I are both able to work from home with work laptops. I also have a ton of sick leave I could use. We have enough food to last us 3 weeks, although it may have to get creative with frozen stuff. Definitely need more alcohol.
I am not sure if my Planet Fitness gym has closed officially, I stopped going a week ago to start social distancing. This means I need to convert my gym routine to a home routine. It's going to be hard to mimic heavy weighted exercises at home. I do have some equipment at home: stationary bike (well old mountain bike on a trainer), a bench press with a cheap-o leg extension/hamstring curl attachment, a barbell with several plate weights, Swiss ball, Bosu ball, many bands. A few of my favorite online PTs are going to address this exact question soon on social media. My "gym" based STRENGTH days 2x/week:
Here are the modifications I made to make this workout possible at home: My "home" based STRENGTH days 3x/week:
So a few modifications, it will work. I won't be able to incrementally add weight as I don't have small plates at home. It will do for the next month or so, or however long we will be staying at home. I still get out for a ski tour 2x a week, or a walk on the other days. So far 4 skis in! Things are starting to adapt, I don't feel as trashed after a ski now! Yesterday I did a 2 hour ski tour and could have kept going! Not a single soul around. The biggest downside of skiing is that it is really jacking up my arm/neck/shoulder on the TFCC side because I use ski poles, albiet lightly. I could stretch all day and won't relieve the pain. In theory it should relieve the pain/address the imbalances, but I'm not supposed to load the arm up while it's in this unbalanced stage. I should not be using the arm right now. I will buck it up for now as skiing will be over soon. There are folks who are waiting to have ACL surgery, just had ACL surgery, and now their PTs and doctor's offices are closed. I can imagine a lot are panicking. I really feel for those who feel like they are going to be set back due to this. I hope they get clear at home guidance, or in worse case, just keep repeating the week you are in as a last resort. There may be some progress delay, but it is going to work out just fine in the long run.
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Doing something only once a week doesn't really allow the body to adapt. So I really wanted to try skiing again sometime during the week. I picked this forest service road because it is groomed for snowmobiling once a week and not too far from home. Luckily only 2 snowmobile tracks were in the corduroy so plenty of untouched smooth track to try out! This route was a tad steeper than the first tour I tried, so I was a bit nervous (the goal is to avoid plowing to stop). But my skins on the bottom of my skis, allowed me to kick and glide at a good pace for the downhill. Overall it was quite enjoyable! The sun was out after work, the sky was bright blue, no snowmobiles around so it was quite peaceful! I brought some sushi for dinner afterwards.
The next day, I was super whooped! I ended up over sleeping an extra hour. My muscles had felt like I ran a marathon. My patellar tendon felt awfully burny too. Things are still adapting! Yes, you read that right! I had my first adventure on skis 1,118 days post ACLR!
Or 1,134 days post accident! That's just over 3 years! Straight line ski touring (or cross country skiing) has been approved by my PT back in November, but my foot issue put a damper on that. I am almost 4 weeks into my tendon rehab having since been out out of the boot for 6 weeks, and so far the rehab is going (no major set backs). Real cross country boots are just too soft and bendy (or maybe mine are just too big), but I thought my ski boots would be a good first attempt thanks to their lightweight sturdiness and use a super lightweight backcountry ski. My whole boot/ski set up is less than 98 oz total, so that's about 3 pounds per foot. Nice and light! I asked my husband if he would go with me, somewhere that didn't involve any turning or plowing, something not so steep so that skins on my skis would slow me down for the downhill. He picked the perfect trail! He asked, "Are you sure you're ready?" I said I don't know, I just need to find out. As I set out skinning on skis, honestly it didn't feel like it had been 3 years. Thanks to neuroplasticity your brain really does remember stuff! As I took off, I was keeping a good pace, only a bit aware of my kneecap area feeling "different." It kind of felt like it does with hiking. We climbed about 300 feet in over 1.5 miles and decided to turn around. I was aiming to stay around 1 hour of activity, just didn't want to over do anything! But man I really wanted to keep going. For the return, we just followed our skin track we had made uphill (this is not a groomed area, just national forest). I left the heels of my boots free (normally you lock in the heels for the downhill), so I could do some kick and glide movements as well. The skins left on my skis allowed me to straight line it downhill. Gaining any kind of speed was pretty exciting, but I ad to remember I had free heels so I could easily biff it. I could do some side stepping turns, but really avoided plowing. Once I got to the car, I was beyond thrilled!! No turns or plowing yet, I haven't even made it to agility in rehab, so that is a must. I have zero explosiveness in my legs right now, so you can't start doing turns without that kind of training. Plus you need to be fully passed in all return to sports testing if you want to do this right. I am aiming to go out again on Thursday now that we have daylight after work! Hopefully again on Sunday! I definitely had some upper quad and glute soreness going on, I think from picking up my leg. The front of the knee was a little tender by that evening, but none the worse by the next day! If anything, this made me realize how much I really want to ski. There was a time when I didn't want to think about skiing, I was really mad at skiing, didn't want to see ski photos, or hear about it. It is just confirmation that hard work will get you there and I am really aiming to be back making actual turns in the 2020/2021 winter season. I now feel it's totally possible. A while back, I was invited on a girls' ski trip happening this month (March 2020). This group of ladies utilize their teaching spring break and husbands watching the kids, to go on a trip. Good for them! Last year it was a mountain biking/camping trip, but I couldn't go because I had just started the wrist protocol and biking was on hold. By the way, I am 11 months into that wrist protocol, making slow progress.
The friend asked if I was skiing yet. I said no, but I hope to be cross country skiing at least. I started to envision cross country skiing, getting excited about the possibility, even mapping out in my head a introductory plan for myself! (Cross country was approved back in November before my foot thing started.) Since that invitation, I have received an MRI and actual diagnosis of my foot issue (tendonitis). Now I'm 3 weeks into a 4 month rehab plan to get it back to running so I can get on with the rest of rehab. Snowshoeing, walking on snow, cross country skiing are not good ideas for this stage of the process. I tested a snowy trail walk last weekend; it was too long, too uneven and confirmed I'm not ready yet. However, I can briskly walk a hour on pavement with some pain but no limping. That is progress from 3 weeks ago! I couldn't walk briskly then. I considered bringing my fat bike on this ski trip. There is a network of groomed snowmobile trails in this area (I've already mapped them all out!), at 10,000 feet! I did a fat bike test a couple weeks ago and any janky snow or hills added to my foot issue, plus jacked up my arm/neck issues. These secondary issues are due to loading up the arm too soon in my wrist protocol. I'm not actually cleared to bike yet, so this could in fact set me back. Plus fat biking is such a conditional sport, if it happens to be warm and melty, that is no good. Then I considered ways to entertain myself without snow. Heck I even googled "things for non skiers to do at a ski resort." Walk the town trail (looked flatish), use the hotel's exercise room (I saw a treadmill, bike and leg extension machine on their website), utilize the hot tub and pool, read, maybe treat myself to a massage. I wasn't sure if it'd be enough to make it worth the $ and driving distance. Yes, I know that sounds like a dream vacation for some (honestly I could do that all at home). In the end, I declined. I just had too much anxiety about it all. It is just embarrassing how long this has been going on, but I have to remind myself I'm doing everything possible that I can do make progress. I felt relieved when I finally said no. They've already got 4 confirmed yeses. Their hotel room only sleeps 4. If there were more confirmed yeses, then getting another hotel room made sense, but it didn't make sense if I were the 5th yes. Plus they all are coming from the same town, the logistics will be simple. I also didn't want them to have think twice about me hanging out at the hotel solo. In general, people don't really understand what is going on. This also could be part of it. One of these friends told me that she has some kind of pain everyday but she just pushes through it, so she doesn't understand why I don't push through it too. Another friend said why can't you just cross country ski instead (even though I JUST said all snow fun is off the table currently)? The foot thing has been going on for months, I really need to rehab this right so I don't delay things once again. So yeah, I was feeling a bit insecure and inadequate about everything! I am using my journal and this blog to reflect on this. I created a lot of anxiety for myself. I don't want to feel sorry for myself, but I do just a little bit right now. I need to turn this around. I tell myself it won't always be like this. I have a rehab plan for everything - knee, foot, arm/wrist - just need to trust the process. It's not going to be like this forever! |
AuthorA 45 year old active female who tore her ACL in January 2017 (at the age of 40). Reconstructive surgery in February 2017 with bone-patellar tendon-bone autograft. Archives
November 2022
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