Physical Therapy - Day 4 - Friday

I'm sore. I think it's because I'm trying to consistently sit in my chair with my knees drawn back as far as I can get the little suckers. Not to mention the challenging PT!

Hit PT this morning and worked with Juanita and Jeff overseeing. Someone else set up the Nu-Step this morning and I wasn't really paying attention. She started the seat at position 8. I did my 3 sets of 5 minutes each, moving the seat forward each time. By seat position 6, I was grimacing. While the pain in my left knee wasn't terrible, it was definitely challenging and my left knee was really stretching tight with some pain. Afterward Juanita told me that yesterday I did them at position 10-9-and 8. No wonder it was challenging today! But, it is progress isn't it?

Two new items were added today: a hack squat machine and a bosu ball.

This squat machine isn't exactly like what we used, but close enough. I hated it. It was hard to keep my knees at 90 degrees, hard to keep my feet from turning out, and hard to get my butt low enough. My legs are typically pretty strong, but I had a really hard time moving and then getting low enough. And did I mention it hurt?

I've seen the bosu balls before but never used one. Obviously the rounded part is on the floor and you're standing on the flat part. Good for core work. Actually I had pretty good balance on the sucker, and then I went side-to-side and front-to-back. It wasn't bad.

You wouldn't think it would be hard to lay on your stomach and bend your legs up to your butt. But, aside from the obvious knee issues, my traitorous feet just don't go right. I couldn't figure out what it should feel like so I could repeat it, but it appears as though my feet were turning in. I don't know. Actually I'm confused about this other than the fact that they just weren't coming straight back. It's hard to fix something when you a) can't see it, and b) can't tell what it should feel like.

I finished up on the Sci-Fit on seat position 8-7-6. Jeff was really pleased with the form on my left leg. Hip down, knee straight, and the ankle moving the correct way, with the knee flexing the way it is supposed to - a good finish. He said it's the first time that my knee was flexing on this bike the way it should. I'm really happy with my progress there.

The best part of the whole morning was Jeff telling me I did a great job and that I should take tomorrow off and have a light day on Sunday. He's definitely high on my list of favorite people right now, although he did end by saying we'd hit it really hard again on Monday. This never happened during my previous therapy and I drove myself crazy trying to do two sets of PT every single day for four months until I was just physically and mentally beat. Jeff said sometimes it's best to let the inflamation settle a bit and that I wouldn't suffer any setback this way. I am so looking forward to the weekend and I will be ready to do whatever it takes again on Monday.