Catching Up...

If you noticed, I haven't updated the blog since Tuesday.

Well, something happened on Wednesday: I started back to work.

I got really busy. Even though I was working from home on Wednesday and Thursday, I was still attending therapy sessions. When I finished up work, I had my own therapy session to work through.

So, my time is very constrained now.

Friday I went into work. I'll get to that in a bit...

On Wednesday at therapy, Kendra introduced some new exercises that I can only do at the clinic. One is for me to lie on my back on an incline machine. I guess I would call this similar to a leg press, in that I have to push myself up the track.

However, I am not to do a full knee bend or a knee lock. Once I get up to the end of the extension, I need to drop it down a few inches. After I do a few of these, I have to remove my right leg and just put all the weight on my left.

Believe me... it's incredibly tough. But, I really like this because I can feel the burn... I can tell my muscles are working and getting stronger.

Another exercise I do at the clinic is a "board balance." Think of a piece of plywood that is probably 20x15 inches. Underneath is a 1-inch board that runs the length of the plywood. I stand on this and balance (try to balance) for 2 minutes. It's rockin' and rollin' - but it forces me to use muscles that I've lost. It's very intense. Then I switch and do it a different way... so the first way I'm going side to side. The second time I'm working on balancing front to back.

In addition to these two exercises, I'm also doing clam shells and bridging (see picture above). Clam shells is me lying on my side with my legs together and lifting the top leg like a clam shell. This puts the focus on the hips, which adds muscle and puts more weight on them rather than the knees. I can do about 50 each of these.

Bridging is pretty tough. When I go up, you can see the intensity is on the bent knee. I have to try and hold it for 2-3 seconds, and then come back down. I can do 50 of these as well.

So those are my new exercises... which, added to the current ones, just lengthens my therapy sessions. Plus, I'm still riding the bike at 25 minutes a session... doing it 2-3 times a day.

On Friday I went into work. It was a long walk from the train station to my office. I actually stopped twice to catch my breath/let the pain subside. I walk pretty slow, too.

When I arrived, my boss/coworkers were surprised that I was wearing jeans... that I wasn't on crutches... and that I seemed to be walking good. Apparently they thought I would be in pretty bad shape.

My day was busy, and I need to not walk around as much as I did. I think that wore me out. When I got home, I was so tired/sore that I just didn't have it in me to do a therapy session. I ended up parking myself on the couch and going to bed around 10.

Saturday was a good day in terms of workouts - I completed two lengthy sessions and felt like I accomplished a lot.

My schedule this week is to go into the office on MWF and working from home Tuesday/Thursday. Those two days are my therapy sessions with Kendra.

So there you go - wanted to catch everybody up.