Watching Jeremy Lin’s recent ruptured patella tendon injury brought back memories of when I tore my right ACL.
Up until my injury, I always thought torn ACLs happen through someone running into you at full speed or getting hit in the legs directly. Little did I know a majority of ACL ruptures are non-contact which makes it even more frustrating. You can be strong, flexible, and self-aware but if you just happen to land at the wrong angle, everything can go haywire.
The Slow Realization
The most devastating part of this video is the confusion J Lin has as he’s feeling his knee. A few seconds when you don’t realize what’s wrong, but just know something is definitely not right.
Granted I didn’t fall to the floor bawling my eyes out but I remember feeling that this is something I’ve never experienced before. It was beyond just sucking it up and playing through the rest of the game. It may require surgery.
Now more than 2 years out from surgery, I’m back to playing full speed and not limited to a certain amount of minutes, but I am still mentally aware of not driving into the lane or trying to battle down low since I know that’s where your body can start to contort and twist in ways you have no control over.
I posted on IG a picture of some dood touching my knee a few weeks ago:
I’ve been working with my mans Curtis to help with scar tissue removal from my knee capsule the last few weeks in addition to doing physical therapy. It’s painful, but I definitely get a ton of flexion back right after the session. The below post is a guest post written by Curtis. I don’t get any kickbacks or anything from this, just helping another brother out on the hustle. Read more:
The Secret Problem to Your Chronic, Nagging Injuries
If there was a really simple, easily solvable problem holding you back when it comes to your achey back and the tension in your neck, would you want to know what it is? What if this same problem was also the reason why you’ve plateaued on your fitness gains? And … the SAME issue was also the precursor to osteoarthritis, disc herniations, cartilage tears, and generalized stiffness associated with aging?
What would you do with that information?
Before I go there, let me introduce myself.
My name is Dr. Curtis McClelland and I’m the new biomechanical guy doing structured personal fitness.
I’m the licensed chiropractor who doesn’t adjust joints.
I have nothing against traditional chiropractic, it’s just not what I do. And if you love your chiropractor, keep going to him or her! What I do isn’t physical therapy either. But if that’s working for you, great! And no, I’m not a massage therapist either.
I remove the most common pathology in the musculoskeletal system. It’s also the least talked about and most easily get rid-of-able issue out there. This makes it a secret problem, because you’ve probably never heard of it before.
What is it?
Muscle Adhesion
It’s the glue that your body lays down when you overuse tissue without enough time to recover. Some call it “excess fascia.”
Are you tight and you never understood why? It’s probably adhesion. Are you weak and you can’t figure out why all of the lifting you’ve been doing isn’t paying off? It’s probably adhesion.
Adhesion literally glues down your muscles, preventing its ability to work.
The great thing about having adhesion is that it can be fixed. Most of our patients see objective changes in 4-5 visits, with significant resolution in 10-15 visits.
If you have pain and you don’t have adhesion, then you have structural problems that cannot be fixed. Even surgery can only minimize the magnitude of one of these problems and can’t completely get rid of it.
Curious yet?
I’d like to invite you to explore your body to see what path you’re setting yourself up on?
The one of living an able, functional, pain-free life into old age? Or the one with pain now that you just can’t figure out that’s only going to get worse in ten years, stopping you from doing the things you love?
TALK WITH ME ABOUT YOUR PAIN: If you’ve only had your pain for a few days or weeks, the research says “80% of the time, it’ll get better no matter what you do”. Wait it out. If you’ve had your pain for more than a month and if you’ve seen multiple providers about your pain, I invite you to have a conversation with me about your pain. Call 929-251-3830 and I’ll discuss your issue with you, free of Charge.
READY TO TAKE YOUR BODY SERIOUSLY? Because I’m starting off with structured personal fitnes, I’d like to offer to the first 10 people who contact me with a $45 exam (normally $145 – that’s $100 discount!) for you to learn just what’s been going on over the years with you. If you aren’t quite sure what we are talking about, we invite you to read the many testimonials we have from our New Jersey Practice
If you’re not sure about me, adhesion, or your injury, that’s OK. Please be gentle with yourself when it comes to doing your workouts though. The highest risk of permanent damage comes when you’ve been given the wrong diagnosis, the wrong advice, and you keep doing what you’re doing. Treat your body with the respect it deserves. This secret problem can wreak havoc, especially when you’ve never had it acknowledged before.
Feel free to come say hello to me on Tuesdays + Thursdays from 9-7 PM. Even if it’s just to say hi. Please email scheduling@barefootrehab.com or call 929-251-3830.
It’s been roughly 30 days since my last update and about 3.5 months since my surgery. The recovery has been going well, although each incremental percentage of progress gets that much harder.
Diminishing Incremental Progress
What I mean is that the first month I actually saw the most visible progress. Going from 0% to 50% in 30 days was awesome since every day it felt like I was accomplishing something. Whether it was doing a basic leg raise, to starting to squat again, or being able to jog.
Then from days 30-60, the progress went from 50%-70%. Only 20% of progress but that 20% was so necessary in order for me to start doing agility exercises and lifting heaver weights.
Now on day 106, I’m probably at 80% of my pre-injury athletic level, so in the last 45 days or so I’ve only made 10% of progress. While the recovery is not as visible as before, you must continue pushing forward despite not seeing the results. There were times over the last few weeks where I thought “damn I’m pretty much there, why do I need to still work so hard to squat and do agility exercises?” The answer is that I’m not in game-shape like I was before, so getting to the point where I can cut and move laterally with ease is the goal.
Exercises
My exercises haven’t changed much, except now I try to alternate between strength and agility days. Strength-wise, I’m still doing the normal bilateral squats, deadlifts, single leg squats, and lunges. I started introducing anterolateral and anteromedial lunges which basically means lunging diagonally so that your knee is not straight when you plant the foot. This helps train the knee to perform under stress and weird angles.
In terms of agility, I’ve really started experimenting with all types of new shit and of course things the physio has taught me:
Line Hops/Ankle Bounces 3X30 – A pretty basic exercises where you lay a jump rope on the ground and bounce with both feet side to side as fast as you can.
Mini-Suicides 3X10 – To train your knee to stop laterally and change direction. Overall this is a tiring exercise since you’re running back and forth.
Side Lunge Jumps 3X10 – A pretty fatiguing exercise since you are pretty much jumping off one foot side to side as fast you can. I also go slower and go for distance to help build my explosion.
I purchased a $9 agility ladder on Amazon to do more agility exercises that involve precision. My physio told me that it’s not just about speed but accuracy as well. So being able to step in and out of a ladder knowing exactly where you want your foot to land will help you get back into game-shape.
Running
I’ve probably made the largest progress in this department. Prior to my injury, I wasn’t really running on the treadmill that much since I got most of my cardio from playing basketball. After the surgery, I really have no option but to get back onto the treadmill to get back the endurance and wind to play a full game. When I used to run on the treadmill, these were my typical numbers:
1.5 incline
8.0 mph
10 minutes
It’s not the greatest, but I would mix in some jogging at 6.5 mph and do a little sprinting here and there at 10.5 mph for 30 seconds-1 minute. I never really ran long distances and treated treadmill work as just a warm up for strength training. However, I know after 10 minutes of 8.0 mph I would get winded so I set that as my benchmark.
Yesterday, I was able to do those same numbers except at 7.5 mph. I know I can probably get back to 8.0 mph easily, so my “cardio” is back to normal and I even did some sprinting at 9.5 mph without any issues. Being able to run/sprint and feeling my legs and hips extend to accommodate a sprinting gait was definitely a great feeling since I haven’t done that in close to 5 months. Long story short, I think I will get back to full-on sprinting in a few weeks.
getontheline 