Year 1: thoughts

I had my 7 month follow up in March and my doctor gave me the all clear for unrestricted activities. There was slightly bump on my scar which either could be a) bone growth out of the hole where a hole was drilled or b) one of the screws becoming loose. But as long as it doesn't cause me pain, I don't have to worry about.

Today it's exactly one year since my ACL surgery. I must be a slow healer because the scar is still visible.

I don't notice any differences between my good or bad leg in everyday or most athletic activities. However, there have been some changes.

- my knee sometimes stiffens up especially after deadlifting. My knee doesn't swell and the stiffness doesn't limit my range of motion. It's more of an annoyance. My physical therapist told me that it would take ~1 year before I can do power lifts normally.

- I can kneel without warming up although I might have to ease into. I can do the following stretch with a little bit of warm up, but unless I've warmed up really well, there's some discomfort in my bad knee

- In BJJ yesterday, we rolled backwards onto our upper backs before rolling forward and standing up on a single leg. With no hands, I can just do this with my right leg, but I can't do it with my left leg. I suppose I'll need to do some additional unilateral work at some point.

- When performing the cossack squat, I'm about 4-6 inches higher on my bad (left) side.

All things considered, my rehab went well. The strength training and rehab prior to surgery really helped me recover quick after the actual surgery. I was on 2 crutches until moving down to 1 crutch several days and finally ditching the crutches after only 1 week. I felt having a athletics-geared physical therapist (HS football coach, former athlete, trained some NFL guys) really helped me with my needs. I imagine a lot of uninformed doctors and therapists would shudder at the thought of doing double bodyweight deadlifts. But not this guy. I've since set new personal bests in stiff leg deadlift and squat, but I am now also wearing different shoes that don't hinder my performance.

Mentally I haven't totally gotten over my injury and I don't know if I ever will. The fact that it happened in the very first class really gets to me. The injury was all I could think of during a throwing drill in BJJ the other day. We'll see how I feel after some more time passes.