Apparently, I have been being going too easy on myself. I've been seeing modest improvements in my knee: swelling has decreased, range and strength are returning. My quad is still quite mushy though and my knee extension is still lacking. It is time to hit it really hard.
I've realized that a lot of what has been holding me back so far has been fear. Fear that I am going to damage the graft with all this lifting. Even though I know that the only way this would happen is if I fell on it like I did when I injured it or if something flew into my knee knocking me off my feet (like a galloping Sparta dog). Today I think that I got past that fear. I pushed 160 pounds on the leg press with no problems and 70 with just my injured leg. It was hard, it felt good and I had no lingering issues afterward. I also spent 20 minutes in the extension chair (counting the time down, unfortunately, no other people nearby to talk to) and then another 20 with ice and Russian stim on my leg. I've used the Russian before. You put electrodes on two motor points on your thigh. Then you turn up the juice until you get a strong contraction. It is set to an on/off timing sequence. When the electricity is on, you try to contract your quad as hard as you can. When it is off, you relax. Amazing, after all this, it looked like I had a new leg. This looks like it will be my protocol for the next two weeks until I can get my tone and hyperextension back. Without those, it won't matter how much weight I push, I'll still have puny quads.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment