Progress Report 1 September 11, 2009

For those who are interested, I’m 2 and a half weeks into my gym rehab and things are feeling a bit better. For the first couple of gym sessions, I was pretty unbalanced while trying to do the various exercises, and my knees kept trying to go in the wrong direction (inwards instead of in line with the ball of my foot).  Not surprising since that’s my dominant pedalling style – knees and heels in. Combined with my preference for seated climbing (even on the singlespeed up steep pinches), it’s no surprise that 9 hours of singlespeeding in April pretty much killed my knee..

I’m feeling more stable when doing the exercises now, and my knee/leg seems to be tracking in the right direction. The movements seem to be more natural, and I’m trying to transfer them over onto the bike, although pedalling with my knees straight still feels kind of gammy. The knee still aches a wee bit, but I don’t want to push it for longer/harder rides to see if it aches under those sorts of pressures.

I’ve been out for a couple of rides, but nothing too long or strenuous (which Ash will be happy to hear). Last weekend’s ride up Bethunes Gully was great – I feel that my technical skills have improved since I got the BMX, and I’ve finally learnt the “push the bike out in front of you while throwing your weight back”  thing when going off little drops! Yes, it’s only taken me 5 years or so. All this time, I’d been trying to time the “push down on suspension while trying to pop off the edge” thing, which, to be honest, never really worked for me.

So, I guess I’ll just keep on trucking with these rehab exercises. Surely, things can only get better from here