maternity sportswear
Fit N Fabulous Maternity round neck top
These past three weeks have been pretty diabolical in terms of rehab and my consistency has nose-dived. My routine was negatively impacted by 2 weeks of refurbishment work; had to stay close to home during weeks 28 and 29 to manage a variety of workmen. My body’s changing shape due to pregnancy also complicated matters, as simply going up a size in workout kit was not longer cutting it. Maternity sportswear is a whole can of worms that I’ll address for interested readers in forthcoming product reviews (have gotten a range of items from a variety of retailers that am currently ‘road testing’). By week 30 I had secured some threads for the gym.

Week 30 got me past the renovations and DIY disruptions and back towards ‘regularly schedule programming’. I worked conditioning on my home mats several times during the week as well as attended Friday night BJJ at Ilford Fitness First. While I’m not comfortable working on the ground with drills or sparring at this stage, I’m perfectly happy to work a range of Gracie basic self defence techniques; Coach warms class up with this sort of thing for 30 minutes, so I was able to participate and then observe ground drills and sparring. We looked at a variety of releases from wrist grabs and an arm bar defence versus a shove.

As my activity levels with pregnancy are reduced from those I was at by the end of 3 months of ACL recovery, there have been implications for the speed of my recovery and the comfort of my knee. During weeks 25-27 I reported stiffness and trouble with full extension; my Physio suggested ‘The Stick’ self massage tool, used by many runners and endurance athletes to work out tight hamstrings and calves, areas that foam rollers can’t really help with. I have ordered The Stick but it has not yet arrived and will review it once I’ve had an opportunity to use it for a couple weeks. Between the cool damp weather London’s been having over the past 3 weeks (think deluge) and the interruptions to my rehab schedule my knee is in a reasonable amount of constant discomfort. I hope to report much improvement in these areas at the end of week 33.

Week Physio Milestones
28 No gym due to managing renovations Lots of DIY activity including a 9 hour stint of reassembling and replacing furniture
29 No gym due to managing renovations Ordered first bits of purpose-made maternity sportswear
30 Conditioning, walking and BJJ First BJJ class in 6 weeks

Disclaimer

Every ACL op and recovery will be particular to the person. The thoughts and experiences recalled in this series of posts is in no way intended as medical advice or as a replacement for seeking medical attention for any injury. This information is presented merely as a record of one person’s experience with ACL operation and recovery.

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