One last question - is anybody doing anything funky with diet/supplements?
I’m basically high protein, low-moderate carbs, lots of green veggies. I’m at @2400 cals per day. Protein, L-glutamine, BCAA, ZMA, fish oil, Greens+ are my supplements.
Putzyx, I never responded to your comment a while back about goalies and knee injuries. I’m crazy aggressive on coming out at players in the box and have had my share of injuries in doing so, so I’ll definitely wait close to the full year before getting into a competitive league.
But in the meantime I might go play a scrub co-ed rec league with my wife.
I’m at college so my diet is whatever I can get at the dining hall. Mostly shitty meat and as many overcooked vegetables I can eat, with lots of eggs for breakfast (when I am up for breakfast, anyway). I take 2-4 protein shakes a day to try and get more protein (two shakes, one before and one after workouts on workout days). I also eat a lot of peanut butter sandwiches. I take vit C, like 6 g of fish oil, multi vitamin without iron, and ZMA on workout days.
I have some pain at the top of my tibia when twisting my knee or bending excessively. I have 140 degrees of flexion, but not all of them are totally limber. My knee is still about a 2+ in swelling. Like I said, I have been having some pain under my patella when doing squats. My PT thinks it is from tracking problems and swelling.
I’ve been doing some weak leg extensions (30 lbs for my rehabbing knee), wall squats, step ups, electric stim, and the like. I was able to do some power cleans last week but got very little drive from my legs, so I could only do about 85% of my previous max. I had noticed some tightness in my right hamstrings and glute, possibly from carrying the extra load on deadlifts. That went away after a good session with a foam roller. I can finally really “feel” my left quadriceps and hammies again. My quad was sore for 3 days after a grueling PT session.
The biggest problems are the swelling around the kneecap, preventing pain-free squatting, and the pain at the top of my tibia, surrounding my large incision scar.
BTW, when you say you are able to row 325 what do you mean? Surely not bentover barbell row?
325 on bentover row would be very cool indeed, but unfortunately I mean on a chest supported machine… 3 plates and a 25 on each side. Due to my hammy problems I can’t do bentovers heavy yet.
Hi guys
I’m from sunny England.
Had an acl op Tuesday using a hamstring graft, also some meniscus tidied up.
Pain wasn’t too bad post op but I do tend to have some problems standing up in the mornings. Probably the blood rushing to the injured area.
I’m just supplementing with protein and BCAAS, Flameout, plenty of green tea and a product over here called Jointace made by Vitabolics. Think I’ll start hitting the vit c also.
Making sure I’m eating blue berries every day
Balance work I do on a daily basis much like most of my routine. The only thing that is a cycle is my running. I should try to find online what my PT gave me to do. Balance work is done with a bosu ball or a dyna-disc for the most part. A lot of stepping on and off of them. Stepping on and over. Stepping over in a single stride. Then standing marches with the knee above the waist. We have started to incorporate either bouncing a ball or playing catch with a medicine ball while standing either with one or both legs. When dribbling the eyes are closed.
I’m happy so far as getting the allograft as my recovery time has been pretty fast. I have friends who went the other route and used either the pattela or hamstring and their recovery was much longer.
dboy - I can see a scrub team being easier than a comp team. I just know the way I play and I wont temp it until I can go back 100%. I hear you about your good leg picking up the slack. Are you walking with a limp or noticeable shift to your good leg? I would recommend concentrating on form and also stretching out both sides of your hips.
Great news today. Was able to do front squats @ 95 lbs past parallel. Not totally ATG, but they were pretty good form, and most importantly, pain-free. I am pretty stoked.
Some good news on my end, note that next weeks is week 12, i.e. 3 months:
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I can do hamstring curls again!!! I did 40lbs on my left leg last week. For anybody recovering from a hamstring graft, it took me about 10-11 weeks before being able to do ham curls
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I did some plyos and they felt good. I did a 2 legged jump up on blocks and jumped down. I was nervous jumping down but it was psychological.
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Next week I’m flying to China… 22 hours of travel time getting there :(. We’ll see how the hammie and knee do with that much cramping.
cxr - you ready for velocity? I’m thinking the week after china or the week after… so the 21st or the 28th.
oh yeah, if anybody is in New York I have some free week-long passes to equinox.
Congrats on getting back to doing ham curls. I don’t think I would have wanted to have to heal a 2nd injury as I’m sure the time is just compounded. I have 3 weeks then I start to do my jumping and agility rehab. Running has been good and th knee gets a litte sore, but from my friends who have had their ACLs replaced it will eventually go away. Some said 6 months and others said a year.
I’ve been advised not to run still… They keep telling me I could still do harm to my knee… They’ve had me doing lunges and on the sliding board for about 2 weeks now… I feel like I’m not being challenged at all in PT… Some of the balancing exercises they have me doing is a little tough though…
I have my 3 month appt this Thursday and according to my PT I should be progressing to the agility portion of the regiment. My strength is coming back, but the size is slow to come. My right leg still dwarfs my left, but the surgeon told me not to expect any size gains for the first 6 months and then they should even out if I keep with the program.
How is eveyone else doing?
I tested today actually. Im 12 weeks out tomorrow. My left leg is at 85% the strength of my right leg and the PTs have sent me home for the next 4 weeks. I still have a bit of swelling around the kneecap, restricting deep squats, but I’ve been able to do parallel squats, leg extensions, reverse lunges, and the like, getting my strength back up. My legs are starting to look similar again.
I was shooting some free throws last week and my leg felt like a prosthetic. I have very little proprioception so I don’t have much confidence at all. I can’t jog very well so I don’t (not that I want to anyway . . . never cared for running). Doc said I could start jogging late May at about 15 weeks if I wanted to.
As a side note, my PT told me today that your ACL is probably weakest 3 months out. Apparently it gets stronger, then weaker before it gets stronger again, so I was told not to shoot free throws because if it was going to give out on me it would do so around this time. Anyone else heard this?
In the meantime I’ve hit 200lbs on a 5’11" frame after going down to 186 at surgery and have been hitting PRs on deadlifts, cleans, and bench press.
My surgeon had told me that the ACL would start our strong and then be at the weekest about 6 wks post surgery and then it will take some time to strengthen it again (about another 6 wks).
Last week I start to move past parrallel and I could tell I was not as solid in my movement, but the only way I’ll get better is to keep pushing.
As far as running I noticed the first couple times that I was over compensating with my good leg and had to consciously think about evening out my stride.
I’m probably in the same boat of doing things that you probably shouldnt be doing and that includes kicking the soccer ball with the nephew. My family was telling me not to cut and take it easy, but all I was doing was passing the ball. I was basically stationary.
So I went crazy and played a game of b-ball a few weeks ago. Left leg was useless, but no injuries at least. Couldn’t help it, I was in China and got invited to play a game and couldn’t resist. I played well though and lets say even injured I was able to ummm dominate the boards and get a few good shot blocks 
I’m back at full strength for squats, deadlifts, etc. Left hamstring curls are annoyingly still a problem, I’m about 30lbs off of my right leg, but they are getting better. I did glute-ham raises this week for the first time and didn’t blow my left hammy.
Funny, my right leg is worse than ever. Moving to New York with a leg imbalance is a mistake. Bad gait + lots of walking = bum hip/knee. So now I need some physio on my right leg. I imagine this would be similar for jogging on the bad knee, so I’ve avoided it so far. Though I’ve thought about doing some sprints on grass, anybody tried sprints yet?
I’ve been doing some HIIT after my 5 weeks of running. Sprints were definately difficult at first. I had to consciously think about my stride as to not to land too hard on my non-injured side. I’ve been working on keeping both my legs balanced so I do all the exercises with both legs.
I got a whole new set of exercises to get myself ready for sports again.
Mainly working on getting my knee ready to handle impact. We are starting off easy with 15 seconds of jumping on the injured leg and then 15 seconds off. Doing this for 5 minutes. Once I can do that, I bump up to 30 seconds on and 30 off. All the weight should be on the injured leg. After that I start doing directional jumping and then moving in a straight and diagonal lines. Then box jumps.
All the while I increase my running and turning. For running I’ll be doing large figure 8s and then move into smaller figure 8s followed by some sharp corner figure 8s and that should be done for the next 12 weeks. I don’t see any of that taking all the much time, but its going to get my knee ready to take the impact of playing a full game of soccer and thats what I need.
I hope everyones’ PT is going well. My leg has definately gotten stronger. I’m jogging,running, and doing agility drills for over an hr for some time now and it feels great to be doing it. After I’m done I just ice for about 15-20 minutes and I’m good. The jumping portion of my PT probably takes 30 minutes to complete and that is only to do it on the injured leg. I’m going to start doing it for both to make my otherside just as coordinated and the crazy stamina that it takes.
Still haven’t started any agility drills but hitting the weights harder than ever. I squatted 245 for 20 reps this week. Strength is even on both legs for major muscular function.
I’m kind of getting used to working out as my hobby instead of sports, which I think will keep me from getting impatient and returning to sports to early.
dboy isn’t your recovery almost over? I thought you had surgery back in December, putting you in the 6 month range. I should be back in about 5-6 weeks.