Pushing the boundaries on my knee

It’s been a while since I have talked about my knee. Last June I ended up in the emergency room after a freak accident at practice I ended up tearing my meniscus, part of my ACL, and fractured part of the bone in my knee. I had 2 months of physical therapy, and then in August, I ended up having the surgery on my knee. The good news was the bone had healed and so had the meniscus. I got part of a cadaver woven into what was left of my ACL. I have had about 6 months of  working back to everything. Rehab, slow techniques, flow rolling, and now full class. I've been back to doing full classes for two weeks, and I’m excited because things are steadily improving. When I first started back, I couldn’t sit in guard, now I can sit and me butt touches my heels with very little discomfort. The range of motion, amount of working out I am able to do is astonishing compared to 9 months ago. It is a relief to do things like attempt takedowns, sit in guard, being able to even pull guard. I feel like I have taken everything for granted.

My knee has held up surprisingly well, I am working on lifting in the morning, with cardio, and then bjj at night. The knee is holding up well, it occasionally swells up, gets sore, just like anything that has been injured, or not used as much as it should have been. I’m slowly adjusting. The biggest example of this was when I took the physical fitness test to become a police officer. The push ups and sit ups were easy. I could do that no problem. My 300 meter dash wasn’t so much of a dash, but for my first run outside, I was happy. The hardest thing by far was a mile and a half run. It was cold, rainy and windy, and also my first run that far on ground. I did it in 13 min and 49 seconds. It was within the time they wanted from the candidates, and actually right in the middle. I was so excited to actually be able to do it. The days after though I noticed how much weaker my left leg still was…  My right calf and thigh were way more sore/ atrophied than my right leg.

Tonight was good though, I lasted through almost the whole practice, the one thing that caught me off guard was trying to positional spar from turtle. It was a little too difficult of a position for my knee. The constant bend and pressure from someone else’s weight , it is definitely sore.

So the good news again, is the swelling isn’t as bad, I’ve downgraded my knee brace and finally, I can train! I’m excited and cant wait to keep working hard at everything! just generally happy.