Wednesday, October 06, 2004
WEEK 17.
So a week ago, (week 16), I went to physical therapy for the last time! Yay! My PTist said that my therapy was going well enough that she didn't see any reason for me to keep coming back, so I'm free unless something weird happens now that I'm on my own.
However, this doesn't mean that I'm not still doing the therapy, it just means I don't have to pay someone to watch me do it. New exercises added at week 12 included...
1. Leg extensions
2. Hamstring curls
3. Leg presses
Currently, I'm doing all of these things at embarrassingly low weights. For example, after five weeks of doing the leg presses, I'm just now getting to the point where I can lift my own weight (3 sets of 10 times). However, that's a lot better than a few weeks ago when I was pressing 80 pounds less. I'm making good progress, but I started from such a low level that it's taking me a while to build up to normal.
Running is going very well. I'm up to six laps around the track now (about a mile and a half), and I'm starting to get a little speed back. The first day I ran, it took me 3:45 to finish a lap (a pokey 15-minute mile). On Monday, I was averaging 2:25, and even did the last two laps in 2:05. It's still pretty slow compared to all of the people who keep lapping me at the track, but again, I'm getting better and faster.
I've also started some agility training. No, not that kind of agility. Basically, agility training is used to improve lateral cutting-type motions. The first motion is called side shuffling, which is pretty much self-descriptive. The second motion is crossover (or, as I'm finding on the net, carioca) and no matter how many pictures (scroll halfway down) I find of it, it still doesn't make any sense until you actually do it. Trust me, though, it works. And like everything else I've been doing, it feels very awkward at first, but I pick up the rhthym pretty fast. It's just been so long since I did any motions like these that it still feels unstable.
So basically, everything's going very well. I'm not setting any records for recovery time, but that's okay. I'd pretty much resigned myself to not doing anything particularly athletic until 2005 anyway, and I think I'm easily on track for that. In fact, I'm even a little optimistic now. Technically speaking, I should be cleared to go back to taekwondo, football, etc. on December 10, six months after my surgery. At this point, I'm thinking that I might be ready before that. Not much before that, and I'm certainly not declaring myself a medical expert, but now I think it's realistic to think that Dr. Don might give me the go ahead when I follow-up with him at the end of November. But that's still another six weeks of PT from now, so we'll see. Heck, maybe I'll even have the surgery paid off by then! Because, you know, once I've stopped giving them money, they're not going to want to see me anymore. Heh.
Updated at 11:04 PM
