Back to the Squats.
So now I’ve started my leg weights I’m fully aware of the hard work that lays ahead of me, and the fair amount of patience that entails from these long term injuries. Patience that people who know me know that I have very little. But so far i’m quite relaxed, it’s what I have to do, I’m also discovering the buzz you can get from the hard work, I’m rather enjoying it.
In the third week post op I could finally begin a full leg weights session that I’d be waiting to start, it was the start of the long intense way back to fitness. I mean I could never imagine doing a total of 21.87km in 40 mins on the bike, no matter being weeks after surgery. Only on light weights but it’s about the progress, I mean starting squatting at 40kg may seem embarrassing to people that don’t know what you’ve done but you have to start somewhere, after three sets of squats the sense of accomplishment was incredible, it was the first time I’ve been able to squat since the day I got injured, so it felt like a bit of normality.
I also got back driving and that was incredible, it just felt like a sense of normality back in my life, you don’t understand how much you miss something like that until you can’t do it. It gave me back some of the independence that I’ve been missing since the surgery. Another positive was it allowed me to get to training easier because I didn’t have to rely on lifts from others, small stuff like this help you remain positive during this period.
Friday of week three I went back to the specialist for the check-up, I drove down, about an hour it took, went in and within ten minutes of walking in the hospital, not even in his office I was out and on my way home, he explained to me what things I may experience in the next few weeks, one of which being the feeling that my hamstring may feel like it tearing, which I’ve never experienced so I couldn’t imagine what that pain was like.
Into the fourth week and well now I can tell you what the tearing is like, and yeah it’s not nice, the sharp pain I felt hurt, I could have screamed but because I was on the bike I decided that probably wasn’t the best idea so I just winced, told the physio and carried on. How bad can it be? Turns out it just felt like an ache for the rest of the day then went away. It did tighten up in that afternoons core session, especially when I was doing our 16 maybe 20 planks.
My range of motion is coming on now and I’d say it’s at around 100°, on its way to being back to normal, hopefully by the time I’m at twelve weeks I’ll be back running so the target is to get my range of motion full by that time, small goals to get where I want to be. I’m almost four weeks into this long journey and I’m still remaining positive, you can easily get down about your situation but this will only hinder your progress on your way back, so keep your head up and believe in the process that you’re in.
The Long Road to Recovery 