Blog

Well my PT was right, this was my week! Wearing the brace while exercising has made a marked difference with my patella tracking. I’ll have to post about the particular brace that I’m using but I don’t have it on me at the moment. I’ve really amazed myself by what I’ve been able to do pain-free this week. Here are my past two days of exercise:

Thursday:

AM:

1. 15 minutes on the recumbent bike.
2. 45 minutes climbing. I felt stronger climbing today and was sad that I only had 45 minutes to spend doing it. I completed all of the V0s in the gym, many V1s and worked on a V2 that was all heal hooks (my favorite but tough on the knees). All-in-all it was a *lot* of deep squats and I didn’t feel pain, yay!!

PM:

1. 75 minute Intermediate Yoga class. This is my favorite class of the week with my favorite teacher, Nina Carmel. I was ready to rock when I came in and she taught a very challenging and creative class. Not only did I succeed, but I did poses I didn’t think I’d be able to do for months (crow, several planks, tree, deep deep warriors, chair pose) and a *ton* of balancing. My knee didn’t hurt. I iced it afterwards just in case (my PT said I may want to do that) but I feel great today. It’s night and day from just a week ago and worlds better than a month ago. I really impressed myself and came home in such a great mood that as soon as I said “hello!” my partner knew I was psyched!

Friday:

1. My rhomboids are killing me today from all the upper body work I’ve done this week (and we did a lot of “flying” in yoga, using my back muscles) so I didn’t work upper body today. Instead I did my PT leg exercises:
   1. Double-leg-lift w/ crunch x 15 (wearing 5 lb ankle weights on each ankle)
   2. Side leg-lifts x 15 each side (wearing 5 lb ankle weights on each ankle)
   3. Standing single-leg kick-backs x 15 each side (wearing 5 lb ankle weights)
2. Then it was off to the gym to swim 500 meters.
3. I’m scheduled to give 4 hours and 15 minutes of deep tissue massage today so I’ll get the rest of my workout in there!

Cheers to feeling great and I hope to keep riding this upswing to the top!