8 Weeks post TKR

For some reason I've been thinking it's nine weeks when we leave for Croatia but today is my 8 week anniversary of the replacement: Aug 21 to Oct 21. Very cool. Had a solid day today despite waking up late and not turning the coffee of! Ouch. I love my coffee and you would too if you got up at 4 am to get ready.

Started poorly and ended well. Since I broke my exercise bike at home I was really motivated to get to be able to turn the pedals on the recumbent at work, which, for some reason, I have not been able to do.

Until today :) Get the seat the right height with some cushions and NO problem! Actually got some resistance on it too ( level 3) which has not been possible with the home bike. This will work.

After the  bike did my 100 ups, then high stepping( onto toes) then 5 flights of stairs which worked better than ever and played on the concept 2 rower as well, which will help with knee flexion too.
. On the stairs had to lean into it a bit to get the pattern down. I have completely forgotten how to go down stairs after so many years of not doing it. Creepy, actually. Such a basic function, totally ( until recently) lost.

LOTS of stretching in the squat pattern, the lunge ( half kneel) pattern and isolated quad stretching with the leg  on a bench behind me. Tons of work.

Then, this afternoon


Clean and press
16 kg x 5/5 x 2
20 kg x 3/3
24 kg x 3/3 x 8 sets

 this went well and the new( old ) groove seemed better than last week although done heavier. Just like it should.

Snatch Holds
18 kg x 30 sec
20 kg x 30 sec x 2 sets

these were much better and starting with the 18 was easier as the extra weight pulls my shoulder back more into the right position. This exercise sucks but it's one of those necessary evils.

Belt squats


put on the oly shoes and put a stick on the back to simulate a real back squat. Wow, this was tough! and the quads felt it. really tried to let the quads and hips open up in the bottom and I could really feel them stretch well. Just the beginning too. Love the shoes and I realized I was trying to get too much knee flexion instead of just getting it started with flexion and then sitting back against it  get more.

Again, never really had a normal squat pattern so this is all very new to me. My power squat pattern was more of a sumo deadlift with the bar on my back than a true squat and I don't want to go back to that again.

Crawls
 2 sets of 50 feet 
1 set of 100 feet (almost continuous)

!!! this was great and felt very smooth and strong. Love to crawl. didn't lift my head so much and hopefully my neck won't be so sore tomorrow.

well that's it for awhile. I'm off to Croatia and Italy for two weeks and pretty sure I won't blog at all while I'm there.Updates on Facebook though.

datsit
Sisu/