And to bring it wayyy back to PT and rehab - after over a year of working with my trainer, my knee is SO much better. I actually take note of when it hurts or is "congested" (aka a tiny bit swollen), because it's rare these days.
It took tiny baby steps, and a lot of faith, and backing off when I didn't want to, and trusting my trainer, and having a trainer worthy of that trust. It took a lot of creativity on the part of my trainer. Every time something hurt, he found an adaptation that required just a little less strength or a little less range of motion. Then I could keep going until the next little bit of strength and range of motion. We used boxes and straps and rubber bands and exercise balls and all manner of variations. These days, not only do squats, deadlifts, and lunges not hurt - my knee actually feels better after doing them. I can trust my right leg on eccentric movements, like hiking downhill with ledges. My right leg still lags behind my left in muscle development, and I still tend to shift left when standing up from a squatted position - but it's gotten a lot better, it's still improving, and amazingly, when I need to look at something on the ground, I actually squat now instead of leaning forward.
For quite a while, I thought I'd never be able to squat or lunge again. It's easy to get caught up in my current issues and forget that a year ago, I was just trying to regain basic function, and even that seemed impossible.
I would not have expected that 2.5 years after an injury, I'd still need to be rehabbing it. I would not have thought that after 2.5 years, it would still be capable of improving. I would not have expected my successful rehab plan to include heavy barbell work. I would not have thought that doing dumbbell presses (bench, incline, decline, standing) would actually improve my shoulder, either - the shoulder that my ortho said would eventually require surgery. Now, my big limitations are things like "My trainer isn't sure my shoulder will ever allow me to do Olympic lifts; I may have to stick to powerlifting." "I'm having trouble eating enough protein for my hypertrophy phase without having GI issues - need to track my meals and find out what's wrong."
It took tiny baby steps, and a lot of faith, and backing off when I didn't want to, and trusting my trainer, and having a trainer worthy of that trust. It took a lot of creativity on the part of my trainer. Every time something hurt, he found an adaptation that required just a little less strength or a little less range of motion. Then I could keep going until the next little bit of strength and range of motion. We used boxes and straps and rubber bands and exercise balls and all manner of variations. These days, not only do squats, deadlifts, and lunges not hurt - my knee actually feels better after doing them. I can trust my right leg on eccentric movements, like hiking downhill with ledges. My right leg still lags behind my left in muscle development, and I still tend to shift left when standing up from a squatted position - but it's gotten a lot better, it's still improving, and amazingly, when I need to look at something on the ground, I actually squat now instead of leaning forward.
For quite a while, I thought I'd never be able to squat or lunge again. It's easy to get caught up in my current issues and forget that a year ago, I was just trying to regain basic function, and even that seemed impossible.
I would not have expected that 2.5 years after an injury, I'd still need to be rehabbing it. I would not have thought that after 2.5 years, it would still be capable of improving. I would not have expected my successful rehab plan to include heavy barbell work. I would not have thought that doing dumbbell presses (bench, incline, decline, standing) would actually improve my shoulder, either - the shoulder that my ortho said would eventually require surgery. Now, my big limitations are things like "My trainer isn't sure my shoulder will ever allow me to do Olympic lifts; I may have to stick to powerlifting." "I'm having trouble eating enough protein for my hypertrophy phase without having GI issues - need to track my meals and find out what's wrong."