Thanks for all the great info here, and I’ve been listening to the podcast. Really appreciate what you guys are doing.
I’m a 40 year old man, and have been lifting for a few years, partly for mental health, but also for physical health. I was a rower in high-school, and have been mostly healthy my entire life. However, over the summer I had an accident at the swimming pool and ruptured my patellar tendon on the diving board. I had surgery on it 3 days afterwards. The surgeon said that it was not a clean tear, and the ends of my tendon looked like mops. He also placed a cerclage wire from my patella to my tibia.
I’m 11 weeks from surgery and have been working with a physical therapist for the last 4 weeks. I’ve gotten up to 120 degrees of flexion and have started to work on trying to rebuild some strength in that knee. I’ve been having pain with any flexed weight bearing, and my PT will not allow me to continue any exercise that causes me pain. It’s pretty damn frustrating, but I’ve been trying to follow her orders.
My question is: is there anything I can do (besides getting enough sleep, maintaining a good diet, and following doctor’s orders) that will help me get back to my normal routine? I heard you guys talk on the podcast about how collagen supplements are not particularly efficacious. I’ve been told that PRP treatment is mostly useless, and I’m guessing that shockwave therapy probably wouldn’t be recommended for a total rupture.
I’m not impatient, and not looking to take a shortcut, I’m totally willing to allow this thing the time it needs to heal. My biggest concern is being able to be active as I have been, and not worry that I’m going to blow this thing out again, so I want to take every step I can that will allow me to bounce back.
Thank you again!
Hey man, sorry to hear about your accident. Honestly at 11 weeks out that is great from a range of motion standpoint. It’s likely a testament to how active you were before surgery. This is a bit of a nuanced case to really offer any definitive advice and one where I would highly advocate getting a programming consultation with us. We would need to talk about the current swelling you are experiencing, what your goals are, where you are at currently as far as strength (we typically use a straight leg raise as the first big landmark). At this point we would be introducing a good bit of quadriceps strengthening exercises but I’ll be honest, it is always frustrating in the beginning. You’re going to deal with shifting to your non-surgical leg when squatting and typically when exercises like lunges are introduced it becomes a balance exercise as much as anything else. It also isn’t uncommon for once you start transitioning into training to feel an “empty” feeling instead of the normal muscle burn we get with a lot of reps.
If I were you, I would ask your surgeon and PT what they are okay with you doing on your own. At this point, if your history is training 4-5 days/week and you’re not at 2 in PT (and likely a little bored there) it is worth figuring out what you can do in the gym. I would still touch base with the surgeon, but at 11-12 weeks you should have no contraindications for getting on a bike or even an erg at a low 500m split. That can also help work on knee flexion. You should also be on a leg press soon (if you have not already started). Almost always the last thing that feels normal after this surgery is going down steps.
But yeah, collagen supps and PRP aren’t going to do anything to get you back faster. I can say this, with the drive it sounds like you currently have, that is your best asset for getting back to prior levels.
Thank you so much for your reply. I really appreciate you taking the time to read and respond. I have a follow up with the surgeon next week, and I’ll speak with him and my physical therapist about how to keep moving forward.
Keep up the great work!