Well, I've finally hit that 1 year point. This past month has been interesting for my recovery. I've really started to push my limits and see how much my knee can withstand at this point. So for the past month I've been trying to work towards running, as suggested by my physical therapist. I've spent some time in the alter G treadmill experimenting with running. Here's a wrap-up of the alter G workouts I've done over the past month:
21 Jul: Alternating 5 min walk/1 min run for 30 mins (45% body weight)
27 Jul: Alternating 5 min walk/1 min run for 30 mins (50% body weight)
29 Jul: Alternating 4 min walk/2 min run for 30 mins (55% body weight)
2 Aug: Alternating 3 min walk/3 min run for 30 mins (55% body weight)
5 Aug: Alternating 3 min walk/3 min run for 30 mins (60% body weight)
15 Aug: Alternating 3 min walk/3 min run for 30 mins (65% body weight)
18 Aug: Alternating 3 min walk/3 min run for 30 mins (70% body weight)
*walking pace = 4.0 (15:00 min/mile)
*running pace = 5.0 to 5.5 (12:00 min/mile to 10:55 min/mile)
21 Jul 2016 was the first time I've run in 677 days. The last day I ran was 13 Sep 2014. That day I had terrible pain in my knee and I knew something was wrong. It would be another 11 months before I had my ACI surgery.
My first experience on the alter G was awful. I felt pain in my graft area and my leg felt like it wasn't working correctly during the 1 min run portion. Running was very awkward. It's hard to describe but I felt like my leg didn't remember how to run. I felt like my muscles weren't firing correctly and that I was just jarring my graft site. I was pretty down after this experience because I felt like after a year of recovering from this surgery nothing had gotten better. I talked with my physical therapist and he said to stick with it. He said I wasn't going to do any damage trying to run at 50% my body weight and the graft should be strong enough to support this. Amazingly within another week, I started to feel really good. The pain didn't completely go away but I felt good enough to start upping my body weight and the amount of running during each session. I can't believe the difference between the 19 Jul workout and the 18 Aug workout. This is the first time since this surgery that I'm starting to feel really good and thinking that this might have worked for me. I'm looking forward to increasing my body weight over the next couple months and get to the point were I can run normally on a treadmill.
In addition to the alter G, I've been continuing to work on strength training. I still work on hip strength a lot along with leg press, squats and lunges. This month I added large stepups to my routine. Since I've been doing these I've noticed my ability to walk up stairs has improved. I'm almost able to go up stairs completely normal now. I do hear cracking and grinding going up stairs though. It doesn't hurt but its somewhat disconcerting because it just sounds bad.
I do have some things I am still concerned about though. Mainly, I worry about not being able to stand on my bad leg and do a squat. I can do this so easily with my other leg. It's quite painful when I try to do this. Also, walking up a steep incline is difficult. I really want to be able to do this so I can go hiking. Other than that It's been a fairly positive month and it feels great to start running again.
