I’ve seen the thread a few times, but never bother to butt in till now…
I had ACL reconstructive surgery back in December of 2004 at the age of 17. I had about 500 pounds of linemen fall into my left knee sending it sideways and backwards resulting in a near 100% tear of the ACL and a minor tear in the MCL.
It’s been awhile, so my memory of the whole recovery timeline isn’t exactly sharp, but it seemed like it took me forever to get healed up. I couldn’t even walk around the house till about 2 weeks after, then at around 3 weeks post-op I fell on my front deck being an idiot and was back on crutches for another week or two. So, it was probably 4 or 5 weeks before I could even walk and start PT.
Once PT started, I was immediately doing leg presses, leg curls, and the like, but extremely light obviously. It was probably a solid year till I really felt completely comfortable with my knee again. I pretty much dropped all my leg lifting after high school football, and even today, I can’t put up much of anything. My legs have equaled out in size, but my strength is practically nonexistent. I am working on that though, and am making it a point to improve my lower body strength.
Yeah its tedious, but rehab is definately making my leg better. Its just over 5 weeks and I’ve been doing the leg press, hamstring curls, etc. I might get the ok to start jogging next week after I see the surgeon.
I find it odd that there are different methods/practices for rehab. My surgeon wanted me in the next day. Others in a couple weeks. I would be interested to know which one gets the best results after a year or so.
I just did a fat trim round using Bartl’s diet. I f’d it up though, I didn’t realize that Surge Workout has like 25g of carbs. I replaced Surge with protein only so my carb intake was extremely low. I had a severe case of the stupids, my brain would just not work. It worked though, I dropped 5lbs in 5 days! But I took myself off of it with the move starting today as I have no food and need to eat out a lot for the next week.
My rehab is going well, I’m back at 225 on squats & deadlift… and I’m power cleaning 135.
So, basically, yeah, I think I’m still in for the v-diet. I’d be good to start in April, I’m moving to NYC this week (movers are packing my stuff as I type right now). But I wonder if I want to do the v-diet instead of the Bartl diet (is that the metabolic diet)… I’ve gotten good results both times and you can do a lot more activity on it… which I like. But maybe I should just do the v-diet.
Its my surgery 2 month anniversary today (Jan 17 was my date)!
So I’m supposed to wait a year for sports because its a re-do, but my knee feels fantastic. I’m thinking I may ignore the doctor’s orders and go back to soccer at 6 months (I’m a goalie so its not so hard on the knee), and go back to b-ball at 1 year.
Congrats on the 2 months. We are shy by about 2 weeks of the 2 month mark. I’m just anxious to start to jog again.
Even playing goalie, you can hurt your knee. Depending on your style and the nature of your league, goalies have to be pretty aggressive. My goal destroyed his knee twice, once in high school and then again about a year later in college, but ultimately the decision is yours.
I am 5 weeks out today. Started rehab at the end of last week but had been doing leg raises and quad sets like I said. I have started gaining some weight back. I was 196 pre-tear and dropped down to 185 during surgery. I’m now back up to like 187, depending on what I’ve eaten ~_~ at 5’11".
4 weeks out (last Wednesday) I was able to do deadlifts with a knee brace on, 3 sets: 10x225, 10x225, and 8x275. I also have been doing good mornings at 135-155lbs on the bar. I will be trying deadlifts again on Friday and hope to get up to my old numbers in the mid 300s like I was doing immediately pre-surgery. I have seen some progress in my upper body this winter, despite the injury. I’ve really been concentrating on my chinups and military presses, and have seen those numbers go up, so not everything is in decline.
Unfortunately I have not been able to do squats at all. I have some knee pain below the kneecap when I pop out of the bottom position (whatever bottom position I choose) and a little bit when descending. It’s not persistent, i.e. I can hold a given position without pain, I just experience it when I initiate movement. Either of you guys have this problem?
I haven’t been able to do squats with any weights as per the recommendation of the physical therapist, but with body weight squats, I have suffered no pain. She has me doing 20 - 30 squats with a 5 second descension and a 5 second hold on the bottom, which can prove quite painful on about rep 15 or so.
My PT told me not to do squats either but of course I didn’t listen… I tried it on Monday with 45 on each side in a smith machine rack… I put a bench under me so I didn’t do deep squats, just til my butt hit the bench… It was painless but, I think my right leg overcompensated for my left leg… I told my PT what I did as she was stretching my leg and she proceeded to push beyond the limit telling me how I shouldnt be doing that… She told me the leg press is what I need to do if I want to lift some weights but, not to overdo it…
I was told to use only half my body weight on the leg press and make sure your knee doesn’t go past 90. However I’m supposed to do 30 reps of anything before moving up the weight or height.
My PT said “thou shalt squat and thou shalt squat often” or something to that effect. I started on body weights, overheads, and ball squats, but then she really pushed me to get going on one-leg squats and bulgarian split squats.
I ripped up my hamstring again doing cleans. I I was stupid, I flew Toronto - SF and back and drove to NY (10 hours)in a 4 day stint, and then tried to do heavy cleans the next day. Surprisingly my body was a little tight. I was doing a power clean with a front squatting motion in it, and when I hit bottom I almost tipped backwards and threw the weight forward. Somewhere in there I tore my hammy.
I thought that I might as well throw my hat into the ring. I have been reading this log ever since I first injured my knee on 2/18 and I found it very helpful in preparing for the surgery. I’m hoping that I can recover as quickly as some of you have.
My surgery was 3/13. I went in for an autograph for the ACL reconstruction and to have some of my torn meniscus removed. Unfortunately, the surgery didn’t go quite as planned. The surgeon wasn’t happy with my hamstring tendons, so he combined them with a donor ACL for the reconstruction. Also, while he was in there he decided that I also needed microfracture surgery.
Due to those complications, I am supposed to be 0 weight bearing for 6 weeks. They also told me that I will be returning to certain activities like jumping and running later than expected. If everything goes well, I will be cleared to return to sports in 12 months.
Because of the microfracture surgery, they also gave me a CPM machine to use for the next 8 weeks. I am finding the thing next to impossible to sleep in. I know people have recommended taking ZMA, but that just doesn’t seem to be enough. I have zero problems sleeping without the machine. Anybody have any tips or advice?
Sorry to hear about the complications. Its a bummer to be non weight bearing for such a long time. As far as sleep is concerned, I took a few pain meds and I would sleep till they wore off and then I would be up again. Just manage your pain the best you can. I found it easiest to sleep on the couch and to have my leg elevated and sleep with plenty of ice. And take if from me, make sure the bag can’t leak or you’ll be wondering why you are wet when you wake up.
I had my 6 week check-up and the doctor liked the progress. He said in 6 weeks I can start my agility portion of my rehab and that I can start on my running cycle. Its a crazy cycle of intervals, but you start off doing 4 minutes walking and 1 running for 20 minutes, then rest a day, then subtract a minute from walking and add one to running. do this for the first 2 weeks, then jump up to 10 minutes running and 1 minute walking, then increase the running portion by 2-5 minutes. I think this will get me back into soccer shape, even though I can’t play again till August.
For those injured or on the mend. Keep the dedication to the rehab and know the limits as set backs will keep you off the field.
The hammie killed the day I tore it, but it healed pretty good in a week. I did romanian deadlifts yesterday and cleans again today. I haven’t gone to a doctor as frankly I don’t know where to go (more joys of moving). I wish I had my physical therapist around for some advice. If anybody knows a good physio in brooklyn (home) or mid-town manhattan (work) I’d be much obliged.
For anybody thinking of doing ACL reconstruction, talk to your doctor about doing an allograft. Not having to heal a hamstring or patella is a huge advantage. My hamstring is consuming more of my rehab effort than my knee!
Hartmann, sleeping with the CPM is the worst thing ever. I couldn’t stand it. I used to roll around in my sleep and end up in weird positions with my leg doing weird things in the CPM. I don’t have any advice for you.
Anybody who has had a hamstring graft, when could you do a weighted hamstring curl (lying or standing)? i still can’t and I’m 10 weeks out.
I tried chasing my dogs around as an ‘agility drill’. No luck, I still have no agility and the knee felt awkward planting. Are any of you doing agility work or plyos yet?
My balance is really crappy. Standing on the subway in NYC I’ve really noticed it. And I’m doing balance board work about twice a week. How often are the rest of you doing this? What type of work are you doing?
My ‘good’ leg is giving me a lot of problems. I assume its carrying a lot of the workload right now. My right hip is very sore and tight right now, which is also giving me some good knee patella cracking. Anybody else having issues like this? I’m going to try more stretching (dynamic & static) to help this out next week.
The good news, my upper body has never been stronger, especially my back. I benched 285 and rowed 325 last week. I’m not doing weighted chins yet, but I’ve got my bodyweight (190 lbs) with full ROM for 10.
Crx/igne - I think you guys were patella graft and allografts… how are those working out?
Crx - do you have much patella pain at all?
Igne, are there any drawbacks you’re finding from the allograft? Any thing crazy like out of body experiences from having some dead person’s tissue in your body
