January 30, 2008

Train the Brain

I don’t own a dog and I never have; but I do know what it’s like to walk one that doesn’t want to cooperate. Every dog owner has probably had those moments when you want the dog to walk and it just won’t. Today, I was that dog.

After 90 weighted leg lifts, 15 minutes of needing-to-go-to-my-special-place flexion torture, 15 tension filled minutes on the bike, 4 sets on the leg press, 90 band exercises, and 10 minutes of walking backwards on an inclined treadmill, my PT gave me a new exercise.

Instead of doing wall squats with the safety and the comfort of a wall behind me to catch me, my PT handed me a stick resembling a jo.

Standing in the middle of the PT room, he showed me how he wanted me to do a proper squat, stick on my shoulders like a bar-bell with my knees bending evenly and my butt sticking out. He demonstrated and then told me to try it.

I stood there.

I stood there some more.

I simply could not do it. Wall squats have been going fine, but I know there’s a wall there to catch me. What if I bent and fell? What if I bent and couldn’t get back up and fell? I tried to make my knees bend but they didn’t want to cooperate.

I laughed a nervous laugh and said, "This is so mental and I don’t know if I can."

After another minute, I gave it a try, bending my good leg first and following with the bad leg. I totally cheated and my PT called me on it, but told me to try again. I did and this time I got a little bit better at it. I had to completely shut my mind off, because it was screaming at me "KNOCK IT OFF! WHAT ARE YOU, NUTS? YOU JUST HAD SURGERY AND NOW YOU’RE STANDING HERE TRYING TO SQUAT? WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?"

My inner self isn’t usually that irate, but she was today. I appeased her with a beach scene the way I do when she wants to curse during flexion exercises and kept at it.

Each squat was a little better and my PT told me to just work on it at home. I have spent so much time guarding that knee since the injury that I’m going to need to completely retrain my brain to trust it again. It’s like I have an overprotective mother in there just screaming out rules and regulations. She needs to chill out so I can work on getting better.

While my brain was chilling out out on the beach, I made it to 137 degrees flexion. That’s a 5 degree improvement from last week. I’d like to hit 140 on Friday. My PT told me that this last bit comes very slowly and gradually so that I shouldn’t push too hard or get too disappointed with myself. I’m a perfectionist and I’m obviously now hearing voices, so what else could he possibly expect from me? This, by the way, comes from the man who tells me that on Friday, I am doing all of my exercises without my brace on.

That should be a fun day for my inner demon. She’s already starting to freak out because she doesn’t want to learn any "new tricks."