Over and over

The other day, doing squats, I got to wondering about stats.  So roughly, since the beginning of October, three days a week I have done 60 squats of varying styles.  So, you do the math....no, I'll do it, because I find the answer amazing.  3,420 squats.  That's how you start climbing stairs again.

Then, there's the leg press.  That's a squat with weights.  200 of those each workout means 11,400 leg presses.  I am beginning to feel quad muscles.

The big yay! of January was the 18th, when I added another step to my front step-ups.  And a few days ago, I decided to get on the treadmill.  I am not walking the same on both legs, a slightly shorter gait on the right, which causes compensating body whining somewhere, so what better lab to force my legs to move the same?

Onward!  New goals.  There's a brick wall in a park nearby.  I should be able to step up on to it.  My mind says do it.  I send the message to my legs.  Nothing happens.  I'm working on that.

Humbling

It has been four months since my knee surgery and three since I started working out with my trainer.  When I look in the mirror, I see muscles.  When other people look at me, they can see all the room for improvement that still exists. But I can't do that and stay motivated, so I press on with a vision of Rachel McLish in my mind's eye view of myself.

When I first started using the leg press at the manly man's gym, Hanks, I could barely lift the weight of the machine.  Lisa my trainer said I was probably pushing 50 pounds.  Then came the day I said I was ready for some weights.   Give me five more pounds, I said.  I had visions of the 12 inch diameter three inch thick 50 pound discs all the other women were pressing.  She walked over with two 3 inch diameter 1/4 inch thick discs and clinked them on.  The visual effect was more humbling than pushing no weight at all.

Lisa's initial rehab workout for my knee included daily straight leg raises, all four directions.  I started with lifting just my own leg weight and progressed to ankle weights.  Week by week, I added another weight to my 5 pound set.  Finally, all my weights were loaded, and I put a 10 pound set on my Christmas wishlist.  I was feeling pretty pumped.  Then I discovered Carl's 5 pound ankle weights in the closet, and I said, well, why not just put both sets on instead of buying a new one.  I took Carl's weights to the gym.  Lisa picked them up and got a puzzled look on her face.  She turned and walked away with them.  When she returned, she reported that she had weighed both his and mine.  Carl's were 5 lbs.  Mine were 2 1/2 pounds.  Oh my Gosh.  I had spent three months building up to just 2 1/2 pounds.  Humble Pie a la mode for me.

I've always considered myself a strong woman.   Kamikaze gardener, farm girl, woman of power.  Then I sat next to a 5 foot woman on the abductor adductor machines.  I set the weight at 85 lbs, proud of my progress since starting at 40.  We both finished our sets and switched machines. She raised my 85 to 160.  Abashed, I lowered her 160 to 85.

I've got a solution for the next time I sit next to her.  I'm going to set the weights at 200 when I finish my set.

A little rehab background

"You really have to work to strengthen your leg muscles supporting the knee."  


"Yada Yada Yada", I said back.  


And then I paid the price.  Torn meniscus.... both lateral and medial. " Huh?"  I said?  That means inner knee and outer knee, and when it's bad enough, surgery.   I held off for a year or two until I couldn't take the pain and couldn't walk the dog, and then, I chose a surgeon. At the time of my choice, his Houston Oiler knee doctor credentials impressed me.


Thus began my journey of learning more about my body.   Having ignored the wisdom of those who knew better than me for so long, I was determined to do things right after surgery.  I started rehab immediately after my day surgery to trim away the torn meniscus and other degenerative issues in my knee.  Since my surgeon sent me home with a constant motion machine to use 4-6 hours daily, I went beyond the minimum and strapped my foot in at bedtime too,  adding 10 degrees range of motion every day until my knee bent all the way to my waist and awakened me at 2 am, about the time my narcotics wore off.  I awoke gasping at the sensation that my leg was caught in an animal trap.

In addition to the machine, I also brought home some crutches.  I was a 60 year old crutch virgin, wondering how such a hobbled experience as I was having with my new third and fourth leg could possibly lead to healing.  For three days, wearing the same pajamas, I rolled my coffee cup around on an office chair and tried to figure out the mechanics of walking.   Then I took a Saran wrapped shower and went to meet my PT guy, who taught me to walk on one crutch,  and I regained a hand with opposable thumb.  I was back in the business of carrying my own coffee.

Meeting my PT guy also meant I could dispense with the few terse instructions on rehab my surgeon sent.  I had read  them over and over, unable to make sense of

         Therabands (black silver gold) 20-30 reps no discomfort to anterior infrapatella area


These were the surgeon's instructions to an Oiler trainer, I realized, but I had absolutely no frame of reference for them. Any another time, not on pain pills, I would have searched the web for information that might have cleared things up.  But instead, I just started doing the routine the PT guy gave me, because his instructions came with pictures. By the end of my first week, I was feeling pretty proud of how much I could bend and straighten my knee and walk on that one crutch.  I was practically flying from chair to bathroom to the coffee pot.

Things were looking up until I cruised into my one week checkup on one crutch.  The surgeon was incensed that after all his valiant effort and painstakingly clear explanations that I would listen to a crazy PT man and walk on one crutch, much less stop taking pain pills because I was falling asleep.  “Why do I knock myself out with instructions?” he lamented.  "Take the pain pills, have some coffee," he said, "and do more squats."


Show me your squats," he ordered.  I squatted.  He corrected my technique.

I pulled out my list of questions, such as, what exactly did you find when you looked inside my knee, what did you do, what should I expect down the road?

“I fixed it,” was his answer, and that I should expect to get presents at Christmas.

“No, seriously, I want to know if I can hurt it.”  

“Well, you can get run over by a car.”

“Am I just closer to a knee replacement?”

“I thought I explained all this to you already.”

Surgeons, got to love them.

Gymnastics

Today Daisy and I walked thirty five minutes.  The entire walk I felt what I would describe as a tweaking feeling in my butt, but I know that won't be a good enough explanation on Saturday morning.  That's when I will return to the gym for my next rehab workout and Lisa will ask me to describe the sensation more specifically, maybe even use a scientific body part term like gluteus for butt.  Then she's likely to comment, "That's good, that means you worked your glutes on Wednesday."

Yes, readers, I have been absent three months because I have been in rehab.  Not the drug and alcohol kind, but the "I really want to walk normally again" kind.  And I have been studying anatomy with the renewed interest of somebody with a dog in the fight.

Did you know that the hamstrings are six muscles?  And that each one can individually be the problem of your complaint that your hamstrings are tight?  I think with me is it the semimembranosus, but who can be sure?  They all tie in together at the knee and the hip.  Lisa thinks my tightness starts with the knee.  There's a reason for that.....knee surgery three months ago.

So, if you check back, I'll share some moments of wisdom, pain and humility soon.....maybe even start at the beginning of this sixty year old's fight to walk the dog like a normal person.  Gotta go..... gotta stretch.

Ave Meniscus

I could have been faithful

to you, my sacred knee

listened to the sages

who said strong muscles
would save me from hell

But I took their counsel

and put it away, along with

“buy low, sell high”

and other worldly axioms

all good in theory

Instead I betrayed you

leaving no choice

but the surgeon with the big ego

crutches

and saran wrapped showers

Now  I worship daily

in the temple of the Y

leg presses, adductors

supine, prone, squatting

genuflecting to my knee

Soon I will have quads of steel
hams of spandex
chiseled calves
taut abductors
supple gluts

All this and more
I will offer

on the altar to my knee
never again
a disbeliever.