The ACL Repair Blog Firsthand accounts of ACL surgery and recovery

Maybe I complain to much, but PT is in some ways torture. Unlike Henry, I am still going to PT twice a week, often for an hour and a half of hard work. Because I was using one crutch for 6 weeks, my left leg is noticeably thinner than my right and definitely weaker. It turns to jelly after a dozen step-ups. But my PT is all about working me hard. The doc said my ACL is super-tight (i.e. strong) and he used some new technique, drilling on an angle, to make it tighter. Course he’s only been doing it for a year, but he thinks its a great technique. I wondered why he didn’t tell me before the surgery. 

I am riding the stationary bike for 40 minutes a day with as much resistance as is comfortable when I don’t go to PT as well as assorted leg lifts and wall slide. My PT has me doing all sorts of exercises that fall into two categories: muscle strengtheners and balance. I much prefer the muscle ones because I just feel that they are working me to get my muscle back (obviously). The balance ones just make me nervous. I worry that I will tweak my knee in a bad way and it is not worth the risk. My PT thinks that the balance exercises strengthen other muscles than the squats and leg press etc. I agree but still, stepping on a half rubber ball, rolling my hamstrings along a big ball, and doing squats on a tilty board are just not my thing. And I dislike them the most because they are more nerve-racking than the boring quad strength ones. And those are really boring. Of course, having a weak quad is the most dangerous thing just now and I need to get stronger.