Claire: Comeback From Micro Fracture Knee Surgery
10 Aug
Claire has been a client for around a year. She’s always positive and a blast to work with. She’s also one of numerous knee rehab stories I could share. I’ll let her tell you her story:
In 2008, I blew out my knee in a ski mountaineering accident. I did all the “right” things during my recovery from ACL reconstruction but that wasn’t enough.
About a year after that surgery my knee starting swelling and I began to lose strength in the leg. The surgeon assumed that there was some meniscus damage left over from the ACL reconstruction.
In May of 2010 I went in for a meniscus clean-up and awoke to learn I had a micro-fracture repair instead (where they drill holes in your knee cartilage in the hope that it will grow back).
I was now looking at a long and painful recovery and restrictions on high impact activities for the rest of my life. Although my recovery went well, my doctor and physical therapist assumed that I would need both ibuprofen and a knee brace in order to participate in sport activities.
A return to backpacking, skiing and climbing was not guaranteed.
Once released from the confines of physical therapy, I sought Scott out to change my fate. At during our first session – Scott accessed my diet, range of motion and strength balance (or in my case lack of).
I was given diet modifications and ROM/strength exercises and within two weeks I was off the ibuprofen.
Within a month I felt strong enough to return to impact activities, which my doctor told me he would permit as “pain dictated”. Because this was before the 6 month mark of surgery I called to check in and make sure it was ok; the surgeon was shocked that I was pain free and quickly changed his instructions to “no jumping” until the 6 month anniversary of the operation.
Over the next several months I worked closely with Scott to rebalance and increase my strength and improve my ROM using training cycles and testing to ensure continued progress. Scott also incorporated my feedback from outside activities to pinpoint strength and flexibility weaknesses.
We did a bio-signature evaluation to gain additional insights into my metabolism and made further adjustments to the nutritional recommendations.
I regained enough strength and mobility that I can now backpack and climb again and a return to those activities renewed my desire to return backcountry skiing. To accomplish that goal the training sessions are now focused on improving dynamic balance and overcoming a fear of falling and failing (a remnant from the original accident). [we are now doing some basic gymnastics and Parkour drills - Scott]
These are some of the toughest workouts I have ever done but I can see the changes in both agility and confidence and am looking forward to this coming winter so I can put it into practice on the mountain.
Ta Keo is a “climbing” temple located in the Angkor Archaeological Park, just outside of Siem Reap, Cambodia. Construction on this temple began in 975AD. There are four stairways leading to the center tower, which is intended to depict Mount Meru. The stairways are quite steep with an average step rise of 12+ inches (in some cases stairs have fallen away making the rise 2 feet. The steps are also quite narrow (between 4-6 inches unless degraded). According to our guide, three people have died on the stairs (I assume from falling).
Claire P.
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