Saturday/Sunday

Saturday I taught my usual class in the morning and then rolled lightly with a few of my trusted team mates for about an hour. I declined a couple rounds with people, but I explained that I’m only rolling with people who I rolled with before surgery and whose movement patterns I know well. No new rolling partners right now (regardless of rank) for my own safety. Afterwards I hung out for a couple of hours before seeing a few private clients for the first time since surgery since I have recovered enough now for that – so they were happy about that!

Sunday was going to be a bit more of a rest day but I had been struggling with several tasks that had been needing to get done the past week or so. I find that if I wait until “after work” or such then I don’t have the energy to get anything done so I opted to just get up and get things done Sunday morning. I spent two hours giving my dog a new haircut. He sits very well for it, but he is a very small poodle and it takes me some time to get his hair properly shaped and in between his webbed toes shaved properly. After that we took a 2 1/2 mile round trip walk to pick up food from the pet store for him and then stop for an acai bowl (he gets the bananas from it).

The walk was a bit rough on my joints – my left knee started hurting on the way back and my hip started tightening up after that. When I got home I just had to do laundry and then opted to lie down flat for the rest of the day, take my meloxicam, and use my red/infrafred light panel on my joints.

Monday – Physical Therapy

My physical therapist got frisky this week. She must have gotten updated orders to be meaner from the Dr after my visit the previous week. I did inform her that I was a bit sore from my walk the previous day – but the hip was fine after rest, it was the knee that was being a baby today.

We started off with more stretches, focusing heavily on my quads (which will factor in later!) I did discover finally a useful stretch for the quads on my left leg and hopefully maybe I’ll start being able to work some more range of motion into that knee if I’m consistent with those!

Most of my exercises remained the same although I did give myself a little more rest time in between exercises instead of trying to transition quickly from one to the other. I was feeling a little hypotensive again this session. My guess is that since we have been using more weight/intensity it is forcing my blood volume to my extremities more which is causing minor flare ups with my orthostatic hypotension. I’ve started trying to water/electrolyte load before and during sessions but much more and I’ll be running to the bathroom multiple time mid-session – so I’d rather just take a second to just sit between sets and let things settle before moving on.

Back on track to the main event: Why my PT was so frisky when I walked in the door – and why she focused on getting my quads stretched out. At the very end of my usual routine of single leg press, pistol box squats, side planks, bird dog holds, hip airplanes, etc… I was asked: Have you done bulgarian split squats before?

Let it be said, I did not find the bulgarian split squats to be all that terrible. I used the 20-inch box as a foot prop so I could get decent depth. I was actually mostly inhibited by the range of motion in my knee and not the strength/stability in my hip. My PT said “great form! Let’s add weight and do two more sets and do both sides!” Hopefully the inflammation in my knee from the walk will die down and it will be easier to do them next time!

Other thing to note is that for my hamstring curl (machine) I was able to complete all my reps at 35# this time. The previous week I failed at the end of my 2nd set and had to drop back down to 25# to complete my final set after a rest. It sounds like a pithy amount of weight – but I remind myself that it’s a fairly isolated muscle exercise as opposed to a squat or leg press.

I was feeling pretty exhausted by the time I got back home, I went to Jiu Jitsu class that evening as usual but was feeling pretty run down and my hip was really exhausted/borderline painful just from doing the drills. I worked with one of our ladies who was nursing an injury and having to be cautious herself while drilling and we both opted out of live drills/rounds which was definitely for the best for me.

Tuesday

In class Tuesday morning I joined in with some of the drills – It ended up being a game of musical partners because the first move we did involved framing and pushing directly on the hip and I was feeling a bit sore and couldn’t be drilled on so I jumped into an established group of two to just do fit ins. Someone came in late and just assumed we were a standard group of three and grabbed one of the guys while I was getting my reps in and then left my partner without someone to drill on. So rather than try to get fit ins with what essentially turned into a new group of three (which would basically mean far fewer reps for everyone and a stupid configuration) – I moved on to another group to do fit ins on… and while I was doing drills with one of the guys the other guy changed partners with one of the guys who was sitting out from the first group I had been with. Confused yet? I just looked at coach and shook my head while he was giggling. Yea I could have said something as the black belt on the mat and highest ranked student in the class – but I save my rank pull cards for things that actually matter. Me getting fit in reps while I’m recovering isn’t that big of a deal.

I did one light positional escape round with that drilling partner and then called that it for the rest of class. My hip was sore. It was as bad as it has been so far since I’ve started the strengthening/rebuilding phase of recovery.

I opted to go straight home from work and not stay around to do my home PT exercises during evening class. I needed to take my meloxicam and lie flat/give myself some rest.

Wednesday

Wednesday was a bit of a continuation of more resting. I taught my evening no gi class and then went home afterwards instead of staying to drill for the gi class. I have learned that when recovering from an injury/sickness it is better to just straight up rest instead of trying to draw it out. There is a difference between recovery and laziness.

Thursday

I planned to drill a bit in the morning class but it was a bit of an out of the ordinary routine class that threw things off kilter. Long story short: I’ve had a lot of personal things going on, I got frustrated and made a jerk of myself. I did my best to apologize afterwards and had a full blown overstimulated meltdown in my office afterwards as well. I felt better able to focus after the meltdown but the day was basically a wash after that so I left for home right after work instead of staying for evening class.

Friday – 17 weeks mark

I was extra thankful to have Fridays as a work from home day after the events of the previous day and the entire week. I needed a decompression day away from people to help me re-center. It wasn’t my best week as far as recovery, but I did not take any steps backwards because I took the steps necessary to take care of myself when I noticed that I was needing to rest.

So with me feeling more inflamed this week, what I did overall was cut out doing the strength portion of my home PT exercises, as well as live movement drills in jiu jitsu class. Instead I focused on just the mobility portion of my PT exercises and just drilled comfortable movements in class – skipping allowing myself to be drilled on like I had been in previous weeks. I took my meloxicam a few evenings as well as continued the use of my red/infrared light panel.

When recovering from injury or sickness, it is important to take the time to rest when your body needs it. It is not weakness to do so – and if I had forced myself to try to train this week like I had the previous weeks I would likely be in a good deal of physical pain and setting back my recovery process significantly. It’s the difference between pushing pause vs a painful rewind.