another knee-ew week, knee-ew exercises!

Hours of sleep: 6, asi asi

Happy Monday!  A new week only means one thing, a whole new set of exercises to challenge lil miss ACL.

On my way to PT I heard Mariah Carey's "Touch my body" on the radio.  I think I'm in Korean withdrawal because this is the first thing that came to mind when I heard the song (click on link):

"tarts my body"

His voice is so soothing and his wardrobe is phenomenal.  Today was all about thigh gluteus work.  Started off with 10 minutes on the bike, followed by total gym with an even higher incline.  3 laps of stool scoots followed that, then the new exercises started.  During the stool scoots Kim noticed my naked knee- no dressings/bandaids!  I mentioned the tiny scab on the top of my long incision, but she was planning on massaging the long incision with cocoa butter for the first time ever.  After scooting, Kim said, "since your balance is so good, I have a challenge for you".  I always noticed this sideways trampoline that was slightly tilted upward and thought that'd be something I'd never use.  I guessed wrong.  I looooove trampolines!  but the horizontal kind.  While standing on my left leg on a foam cushion i had to throw a mini 2lb dodge ball against a trampoline so that once the ball hit the trampoline, it would bounce right back into my hands.  Had to do 3 sets of 10 in a row without putting my right leg down.  My left glut definitely felt it.  After that we did yellow resistaband work with side steps.  The new resistaband exercise added was the "monster walk."  It's basically a wideleg walk taking big steps forward, but not quite a lunge.  While i did two lines of that forward, I had the monster mash song in my head.  Smiled thinking about it.  The other thing that made me smile was that there was an older woman with a walker who was doing some arm exercises with this pulley device.  I watched her from the corner of my eye while doing the monster walk.  Music playing in the background?  Taio Cruz's "dynamite".  hehe, was so cute.  It's like when I see an older pedestrian crossing the street while I have a song with a fun beat blasting in my car.  I love it when that older folk is walking to the beat, yet, they have no idea.  Anyhoo, back to exercises.  We did step work on an even higher step, 3 sets of 20.  The smaller step was used to do heel touches with my right heel as my left leg stayed on the step.  At first I had to put my left hand on the ballet bar, but the next 2 sets I was able to do without holding on to something.  The last standing up exercise was on the balance first board.  She put a taller piece of wood under it, making it more see-sawy for me.  If that wasn't enough, she added a body blade that I had to hold in front of me with both hands and move up and down.

she totally looks like a korean drama actress with a body blade

Think sideways shake weight.  Had to move that blade while balancing for 1 minute, two times.  That was a nice full body exercise!  Kim had me foam roll my left leg and the mass of scar tissue after all that.  It's getting smaller every day, but is still noticeable.  It'll take a while for that thing to disappear, same story with the bruising.

Finally I got to take my shoes off as I did table work.  Started off with 3 planks, 30second holds with 2 side planks, 30 seconds too.  I'm finally able to do side planks on my feet rather than my knees.  The final exercise was the good ol' heel to butt pull.  Kim knows I dread it but she was impressed with the ones I did.  When it was her turn, there about 3 where I touched heel to butt!  The first one she was like, "do you feel your heel?"  And i said, "oh, I thought that was your hand."  Kim said, "nope, it's all you, I don't have a third hand..."  Then I thought about how me and Lis joked about animals and their 5th paw.  Or a guy and his 3rd leg.  Fifth/third bank.  Before icing, we did a scar massage and chatted.  When she massaged the long incision I could feel it pretty well.  The tingling sensation is finally wearing down where I can finally feel sensation along the incision.  Anyhoo, after getting over that new less tingly feeling, I told her how last Friday I did a lot (walking, standing for long periods) and felt like I overexerted the knee which got me nervous.  But it was mostly due to being on my feet a lot and then having long periods of sitting where I couldn't move my leg d/t lack of room.  I'm probably a broken record to her because she has to keep reminding me that it's expected that the knee will stiffen up so fast in a matter of minutes!  Ended the session with a long icing.  Here's my awesome view when i get iced

it's like a sauna with a long beam light dangling from it!

I looked at the clock and saw that this session was one half hour more.  More intense!  Kim has me do treadmill work on my own and said for now to walk as fast as I can tolerate but not for more than half an hour.  So I went to the gym afterwards to get my walk on.  Along with that, practiced my new exercises on my own with the equipment that the gym had to offer so I could improvise on my non-PT days.  Here's how the treadmill and improvising went:

19 min mile?  I'll take it!

doing the monster walk, not to the monster mash

side steppin with the resistaband

used the bosu ball as a replacement for the foamy cushion.  Goal is to stand comfortably on one leg with hips not tilted

Honestly, I get excited for my sessions, it's like I'm going to an adult gymboree.  I get the feeling that I used to get when we had open gym for gymnastics where we didn't have to do any routines or conditioning, it was strictly for attempting new tricks and dismounts.  I loved landing into the twinkie mat.  Hopefully Wednesday (the big one month anniversary) I can get rid of the robobrace.  Can't wait to wear real pants again!

Gonna end the night with the bulls game and "bethenny ever after".  Today wore me out!

post op day 26 pic...donde esta the bruising?  it's finally going down!