After many issues with my knee and my shoulder, I'm back in the gym!
It's been just over two years since my ACL surgery, and squats were still causing knee pain. Never mind one leg squats. But it's been a real problem - my right quad has been considerably smaller than my left quad, and I've had trouble convincing my right leg to do its fair share. (Note, I'm right side dominant, so this is particularly frustrating.) I can't do deadlifts when I'm using one leg more than the other - I would end up with back pain every time because of the screwy dynamics.
On top of that, my shoulder had enormous problems for quite a while. Even yoga, which is normally my go-to for shoulder relief, irritated it. After much PT, I went back to trying deadlifts - but my shoulder was elevated. Again, no good for even deadlifts. Did some more PT and body work, and eventually got that straightened out (literally).
I asked my trainer for a one-leg quad exercise that didn't require full body weight. I couldn't even picture what would work - but that's why he's the trainer. You do a one leg squat where your other leg is straight behind you on an exercise ball, and one hand is holding something - loosely - for support. While you squat, the ball rolls back with your leg, and the same when you stand back up. Focus on squeezing the ball at the bottom, and using the front leg's muscles all the way through.
That exercise was the first time since surgery that my right quad got more sore than my left!!
So I started getting back into deadlifts under his supervision - light weights, high (10) reps. I'm slowly working my way up the weights. I know I can lift more than I am, but I'm following his guidance and increasing weight very slowly. I realized my knee didn't hurt, even though I'd stopped wearing lifting shoes for deadlifts (shoes aren't usually used for deadlifts, but he recommended it to reduce the stress on my knee).
Then my trainer had me try front squats. In the past, my inflexible shoulders and wrists hadn't let me do these properly. And as I mentioned above, even body weight squats had been hurting my knee. But with all the shoulder PT I've done recently, I was able to get my hands where they should be. I only realized after the fact that I'd been able to do some pretty deep squats, even with a bar and a little bit of weight, without any knee issues!
These front squats are nice because it's hard to "cheat" and use one leg more than the other. I definitely notice it the day after - my right quad is actually more sore than the left!! Yay!!
So I now have enough exercises that I can do a full workout, and I even need to mix and match a bit from day to day. My weight room is in a climbing gym, so if I have extra time, I'll do some routes afterwards. Weirdly, climbing makes my knee feel better ...
My exercises (currently):
- Lat pulldown
- Ring pushups (I take two or three steps forward to reduce the effective weight)
- Seated cable row
- Decline sit up (Doing these at 45* and 55*, which is higher than dedicated decline benches go)
- Hammer (I can't find this by name on the interwebs, but you put a bar into this ball joint on the ground and then slowly twist from side to side and bring the bar down to your waist and up again)
- Deadlift
- Front Squat
- 1L squat on ball
How does all of this relate to skiing? Some does, some doesn't, but lifting heavy objects just feels good. Or even lifting modest objects with the goal of lifting heavy. Before whatever stopped me in the past, I was able to do sets of 205 lb on deadlifts, and my goal is to get there and then go beyond. Ski season could interfere. But yesterday, my highest set was 155. Baby steps. I keep reminding myself that it's more important to work on proper form and not injure myself - than to boost my ego with bigger weights too fast.
...After tonight, I’ll have been to the gym 3 times this week!! I think that’s a record for me. I’m such a lazy exerciser, but I do like to be active....before trying this gym thing, I get myself to “exercise” by riding my bike to work every day. I much prefer biking to the subway. I switched my bike to fixed a few years ago so that I’m pedaling 100% of the time. I walk a lot. In the winter I do ice hockey skating clinics and attempt to play, then there is skiing. But that was the extent of my “exercise”.
