Training With an Injured Knee

About a month ago I tore my Medial Meniscus (Cartilage on the inside of my left knee) whilst at work with some associated strains of tendons. The physio has helped to repair the tendon damage but my surgery for the Cartilage is another month away with six weeks of rehab after that before I can start squatting or dead lifting and I’m wasting away as I sit here.

Now the physio has given me the all clear to do upper body work all be it on machines at the gym, no free weights lest I slip and tear more or tear a ligament.

O.k. I can deal with that I’m a free weights guy but I can go to a commercial gym and try and bust the machines for a couple of months I can even manage single leg squats and do a few machines for my good leg.

Now here is my major problem I was in serious training for an important surfing contest and this has blown my schedule out the window, what I�??m really asking is if there is any exercise that anyone knows that I can do to maintain some form of power and strength in my injury side without putting any stress on the knee joint, Quads, Hams and Calves.

I know it�??s a big ask and I�??ll run anything past the physio and doctor but I only ask here for the broad knowledge base that this forum carries.

Thanks

If you can’t stress the hams, there is not much you can do for the injured side. The hams are involved in just about every lower body strength move. Is it really that severe?

The good news is that working one side has a carry-over to the other. The injured side gets almost as much neural stimulation as the uninjured during exercise, since the brain doesn’t discriminate that finely, and benefits equally from the post-exercise hormonal boosts. That is: working only one side can actually make the other side stronger as well.

Thanks for the thoughts and the wisdom

Yes it is that bad has locked my knee once and the problem is that you can do some serious injury to the Anterior Cruciate Ligament if you lock and twist it out and that can mean some serious reconstruction this is what I�??m told anyway. Fortunately the surgery for it now is a simple procedure.

I was aware of the carry over effect but was just hoping that there might be some way of augmenting the work outs.

I�??m lost without the leg workouts and growth will stop so I guess I�??m just very frustrated and hoping for anything that might help because I can�??t afford to loose time out of an already tight and well mapped out training plan.

Thanks again for the reply I really appreciate the fact that people take the time out to try and help especially when I feel so frustrated.

Cheers

[quote]skidmark wrote:
If you can’t stress the hams, there is not much you can do for the injured side. The hams are involved in just about every lower body strength move. Is it really that severe?

The good news is that working one side has a carry-over to the other. The injured side gets almost as much neural stimulation as the uninjured during exercise, since the brain doesn’t discriminate that finely, and benefits equally from the post-exercise hormonal boosts. That is: working only one side can actually make the other side stronger as well.[/quote]

I swear this is true - when I was recovering from knee recon (an ACL rupture - terrible skiing accident), I found that I lost very little in the muscles on the effected leg; I attributed this to some sort of neural magic by way of training the other leg. And I’ll bet the hormonal response you mentioned is responsible as well.

Bizarre and nifty, eh? :slight_smile:

Thanks katzenjammer

Once again even hearing a little positive reinforcement helps the mental state I think I may have lost my shot at my contest without the cardio exercise that I would usually do and no in the water training but you guys have given me hope on the workout front

Thanks again

Here’s wishing thee Godspeed, Sir Lancelot!

Thanks katzenjammer, may your Sword never rust and your Armour never squeak.

The doctor and the physio have banned me from any gym work or swimming until the surgeon has his fun it seems that there may be other problems and they want me off it all together so I don’t do any more damage to top it off I’ve put on 4 kilos in four weeks (how the hell that happened when I’m barely eating I don’t know)so I can pretty much kiss the comp goodbye.

The weight was kind enough to go strait to my waist too oh well back to the start line with me and surgery may still be three weeks away as I don’t see the surgeon now till the twentieth. At least I have T-Nation to keep my spirits up and get me physicked up for the return to training in the future