Saturday/Sunday

Saturday was fairly chill – I just went in to teach a morning class. I ended up with one student, so it turned into a private lesson on lasso guard techniques. Afterwards was open mat and I opted to just do a good hour-long mobility/stretching session since my week had been pretty high impact, and there were no partners at the onset who I would be comfortable rolling with at this stage of my post-op recovery.

I stayed up late that evening tracking my dad’s progress as he raced at the Multisport World Championship in Townsville, Australia. He ended up ranked #9 in his division – achieving his goal of making the top 10 and I’m pretty sure he was the top ranked athlete in his division from the Americas. He did the long course triathlon (half Ironman length) which he had to work hard to earn a qualifying spot for on Team USA – so he was pretty pleased with himself!

Sunday is my sloth day. I slept in, did minimal mobility drills for my hip throughout the course of the day, light therapy, and worked on my 3rd play through of The Witcher 3 on my nintendo switch. I am pleased to report that I did however remember to place water bottles in proximity to my nest and stay mostly hydrated during the course of the day.

Monday – Physical Therapy Day

My physical therapist continues to be happy with all the progress – I showed her the videos of some of my live work and agreed that since I can do things without pain during and after, to keep doing it. The only discomfort I still feel is some achiness when lying on my surgical side for an extended time period, and when lying on my non-surgical side it’s more comfortable to put a small pillow between my knees if my hips are stacked.

For PT this day I didn’t really have any new exercises, but we added weight/progressions to most of my existing ones. My single leg press went from 87# to 112#, my hamstring curls went from 25# to 30#, my elevated heel squats went to a steeper elevation and we added a 15# weight, my modified side planks now have me elevating my top leg during the plank. They keep trying to come up with creative ways to stretch my quadriceps – a difficult task due to my hypermobility. Today they had me lie face up on the table (holding on to the opposite edge with one hand) and let my leg hang off the edge with a strap around my ankle so I could pull it back toward my butt while the other one stayed straight on the table. I didn’t need the strap for my surgical side, only needed it for my non-surgical side because I don’t have the range of motion in that knee (since it had surgery and healed intentionally stiff).

For evening class I was a bit out of it mentally because we had some bad from for our extended bjj family (send prayers/good vibes to them!), but I was able to drill a few moves and then get two full rounds with our blue belt ladies when it came time for sparring. I just go more to close guard as opposed to playing my usual open guard game which leaves me feeling a bit more vulnerable to unpredictable movements right now.

Tuesday

For morning class we worked on a side control escape (side control bottom is our position of the week) involving a bump/reverse shrimp then coming back to an omoplata option. There are of course other options once you shrimp out but we chose to work on an omoplata finish today. I did three positional escape rounds, upping the intensity a bit since my training partners were trustworthy and skilled. At one point I was placed in deep half guard on my surgical side and quickly tapped since that is a position/angle that I have not drilled any movements from in class or in PT.

The last round that I had that class definitely turned it up a notch higher than any matches I have had to this date, so I decided to sit the rest of the class and see how I felt after cooling off a bit. I could definitely feel some tightness forming in my adductors and flexors, but nothing painful in the joint itself. All indicators that I stopped at the right time to keep from overdoing it. I opted against doing our competition class or my PT exercises that evening, just because of that hard push and wanting to make sure everything settled properly. I did feel a pain in my TFL that afternoon with a movement (not my surgical area) which was definitely an indicator that my muscles were at their limit for the day and needed more recovery time. I set myself up in my office for a mid-day treatment with my infrared light box panel (glad I opted for the mobile unit!) which helped the immediate inflammation.

Wednesday

Thanks to the choices made the previous day of resting after that morning push; I woke up feeling pretty good with no achiness in my joint anywhere, and no sharp pains with any movements in the morning with my range of motion exercises. All I had was muscle soreness and tightness from the PT on Monday and the training in class the past two days. That is be expected and easy to deal with through gentle mobilization exercises. This keeps blood flow and lymphatic circulation up in the areas and will reduce my risk of chronic issues in the area as my recovery progresses. I noticed more tightness in the abdominal muscles again on my right side as opposed to my left which was impeding some of my rotational range of motion in my hip. I did a little bit of fascial stretching work in my abdominal area on that side which evened out my range of motion with at that particular angle with my other hip.

For our evening ladies no gi class I taught escaping side control bottom utilizing reverse bump/shrimp movements for two different options. I was feeling recovered enough from Tuesday morning’s training to join in on our evening gi class and, after learning a new lasso guard pass, worked a few live rounds of guard passing. I was super pleased to get to successfully try out a new pass to mount that one of our professors had shown me the previous week, as well as smoothly hit the guard set up and sweep from the seminar that we had a couple of weeks ago! One of my teammates filmed the matches for me so I was able to watch the playback, and my movement looks pretty smooth although you can definitely see on my face how much I am concentrating. All my focus during live rounds is on making sure I’m moving safely and watching for unexpected movements that I may need to react to in order to protect my hip.

Thursday

This morning in class I drilled our side control escapes normally and then did positional escapes and rounds. As always, rolling cautiously and tapped once to my leg getting in a potentially threatening angle before any pressure started to be applied to it. My teammate apologized and I assured him that it wasn’t his fault and I tapped solely to the position and not to any actual pain or pressure. I have a good crew to train with that have my best interests at heart, but my physical safety is still ultimately my own responsibility and I’m not putting it all on them – especially when I significantly outrank them.

I was feeling a bit of wonkiness in my left knee and opted to go home to rest instead of staying for evening class. I’m moving differently than usual in order to compensate for my hip and I don’t want to throw my other joints out of balance by overtaxing them since I already have a hard enough time with that due to my underlying hypermobility.

Friday – 15 week mark

That brings us to today at the 15 week mark. Next Wednesday I have my follow up with my surgeon – and I think it’s close enough to call it my 4 month post-op check in. I am writing out my question lists for him which mainly have to do with solidifying what my timeline is looking like now that I’m further out from surgery, and what my PT plan should be moving forward. He said at the before surgery that typically it’s 3-4 months of structured PT post-op so I may end up getting released from the clinic after next week.

My intent for this post-op visit is to make it known that while I am compliant and following all instructions with a long term good outcome in mind, I am only surface level calm and patient about it. Since my progress seems to be coming along quite well, I intend to ask if any events this year would fall within the realm of reasonable and acceptable. Pointing out the AJP World Pro and IBJJF Nashville Open in November (at the 6 month post-op mark), and then just for the drama to point out the AJP Dallas Grand Slam coming up in just one month.

I’m considering scheduling a consult with the orthopedic specialist who did my first surgery on my knee 3 years ago to have him look at my elbow. They all have their specialties so I feel a bit like a ping pong ball since he doesn’t do hips, and my hip surgeon doesn’t do elbows so I can’t ask him about ordering tests at this upcoming appointment. They are in the same group though so at least all my files stay in the same system! I’ve had some long term instability in my radial/ulnar joint (hypermobility life) which I’m okay living with and have managed just fine until now. After I took a hard fall to on my shoulder about 4 years ago though, it resulted in a chronically unstable SC joint which has put a lot more strain on my elbow due to compensation patterns particularly when trying to do any weight posting with my arm, which has become more and more difficult to manage at the elbow. It’s become a bit of a chicken/egg dilemma for me, and I think I need some outside/professional eyes on it to hopefully help me find a way to get balanced out and more useable again.