It’s Wednesday so that means it’s gym day. I fronted up at the appointed hour – 1,15PM – as I’ve done on so many Wednesdays over the last eight months. Crowd had started to thin from the lunchtime tumult. Warmed up on the recumbent bike before Belinda arrived. I find this much easier on my neck than the normal stationary bike. We went through the usual exercises shown below. This is what a program should look like, eight months and two days after tibial plateau fracture surgery. If you are younger than me, you may be leg pressing a lot more than 70 kg. If you are older or haven’t been as regular with your exercises, you may be pressing a lot less.

A typical exercise chart for 8 months post surgery. It doesn’t show a half hour warm up on the bike. This exercise routine takes 1.5 hours.

Belinda introduced some new exercises today:
1) using both legs on the curl and extension machines (instead of broken leg only) and initial weight of 30 kg

2) using an adductor machine for the first time at a weight of 35 kg. This is a peculiar machine designed to strengthen the muscles of the inside aspect of the thigh. Pretty easy really even at 35 kg

3) one legged squats hanging onto a rope. This is a a variation on doing squats with a gym pole.

3) skipping sideways over a Bosu ball – up and over – 15 times using both legs. This hurt the MCL ligament in my right knee which had an accident with the fruit box last night. Quite sore.

4) stepping onto the Bosu ball on the injured leg and balancing there using just one leg. This was hard.

The last two exercises, plus the adductor machine, are specifically designed to prepare my legs for skiing which has a lot of sideways movement.

The big news of the day was that I tested myself stepping backwards over the Bosu ball. Haven’t tried this for awhile.To my astonishment it was easy. Well relatively easy. It didn’t involve any pain. I am always excited about exercises that don’t involve pain. This is the first time I’ve been able to do this without either falling off the ball or ending up with an aching knee. Belinda said this is due to increasing strength in my quadriceps muscle and better strength in the tendons below my knee.

The bad news of today is that Barry may have to have surgery on his elbow. He has a form of carpal tunnel syndrome. He hasn’t definitively decided whether he is going to do it or give it a little bit of time to heal naturally. Either way he is out of the water in terms of long-distance swimming for some time to come.