Road To Recovery Series Update: Building a Base For Exercise

The other week I was talking about my sudden realisation that it had been two months since my ACL surgery. You can read up the previous post here. Yesterday, after much procrastination, was my first trip to the pool for some serious leg work. In the past two weeks, I have decided to start doing some functional fitness to build up my core. The pool work complements the need to create a base initially, before we start any training regime. Following is a list of some of the exercises that I have been doing at home and in the pool:

At Home:

• Elevated Push-Ups: Basically, this is a modified push-up. I place myself in a regular push-up stance, but I am elevated and have my hands up on the back-end of my couch, and my legs planted against the wall. I proceed to so 3 sets to failure. (Believe me, I hurt for two days after, that’s how unfit I am currently).

• Crunches: Same ol’ drill as any other crunch exercise. Here, I get on the floor and crunch out to failure on a regular crunch, then a reverse crunch and finish it off with some crossover crunches.

At the Pool:

• Running Waist High: This felt absolutely fantastic. Just the feeling of running again was exhilarating, especially after a long hiatus without any full range movement at all. The only downside was that the pool was packed with little kids and their parents (it was 37 degrees in Sydney yesterday). I did as many laps as I could and then hit the spa and massaged my leg a little for circulation.

• Stationary Kicking: Freestyle kicking, without the paddling. Here I let my body float while I latched onto the side of the pool, and kicked the hell out the water, for as long as I could. this really helped with extension.

• Waist High Water Squats: Same position as a usual squat, waist high in the water. I really felt this work my legs somewhat, it was also a good way of getting better flexion.

And that was it for this session. Today will be much of the same. I will keep you all updated as to my progress.