first week of camp i got rolled up on from the side by a defensive end and torn my MCL on my left leg right off the bone a few weeks later i had surgery to screw it back to the bone and the season was done. fastforward 4 months to today. i was just released to begin doing lateral movement which means my leg is 90% healed. i am having the hardest time gettin strength back in my surgical leg and am at a loss of ideas to get stronger. i cant do lunges i cant squat more than my body weight my vert is less than three inches.
[quote]BiggerthnU wrote:
first week of camp i got rolled up on from the side by a defensive end and torn my MCL on my left leg right off the bone a few weeks later i had surgery to screw it back to the bone and the season was done. fastforward 4 months to today. i was just released to begin doing lateral movement which means my leg is 90% healed. i am having the hardest time gettin strength back in my surgical leg and am at a loss of ideas to get stronger. i cant do lunges i cant squat more than my body weight my vert is less than three inches.
any ideas?[/quote]
Squat your body weight. That’s a start. Leg press, even Gasp leg extension and curls. SLR’s, add ankle weights as tolerated. Ball squats…add DB’s when you can, High Box Squats (essentially a sit to stand), progress to a single leg sit to stand on a HIGH box, and gradually work your way down until you can go to parallel.
DL’s and all variations, SLDL’s, RDL’s, Rack Pulls, etc.
Just be aware that anything hamstring dominant may pull on the same spot where the MCL is attached, so if it hurts, be careful.
extensions are out of the question for a month or two while the platella(sp?) heals they cleaned up the cartilige during the same surgery and it takes 6 months to heal im told…life sucks
Just keep moving, and, like Modi said, do BW squats to the best of your ability.
You’ll get back in the iron game with your lower body soon enough.
Also, try your best to maintain symmetry with your body throughout the range of motion with all of the bilateral exercises you attempt from now until you’re back to fairly optimal strength levels.
I made the mistake of recovering from my knee injury using almost exclusively bilateral movements, where I allowed myself to drift to the stronger side more and more as I added weights.
Now I have a noticeable imbalance in strength between my right leg and my left leg, specifically in the VLO of my left leg.
[quote]BiggerthnU wrote:
extensions are out of the question for a month or two while the platella(sp?) heals they cleaned up the cartilige during the same surgery and it takes 6 months to heal im told…life sucks[/quote]
Then work on weighted straight leg raises, all directions that are pain free. If you can squat, do that. Ball squats with weights will allow you to increase your load, but will be less stressful on the knee. If you are training unilateral, make sure you train both legs. It’s easy to overtrain the injured leg and create an imbalance the other way.
Again, any dealift variation that is pain free should be fine. There are tons of things you can be doing right now. It’s easy to look for reasons not to do anything, but that will just set you back another 2 months. Find out what you can do, and start doing it.
If you are really in doubt, see a Physical Therapist or someone in the Sports Medicine field and ask. 6 months without activity due to having your cartiladge cleaned up sounds super conservative. I’ve had athletes back on the field in 3 1/2 months after a total ACL/MCL/Medial Meniscus, so there are things you can do to speed up the process.