Last week I was mostly injured. What started as a niggle in my knee on Monday saw me with a slight limp by Tuesday which got progressively worse. A trip to my osteopath on Thursday saw me taped up and under instruction to avoid putting weight on my knee as much as possible and RICE.
I’ve got a strain of my medial collateral ligament and possibly something going on with my anterior cruciate ligament. It’s the latter of these that bothers me more but I won’t know for certain unless I get an MRI. I’m back off to see him this morning and he may refer me then – it’s feeling better since I’ve been resting it, but still not quite right.
I don’t know what caused it. I can’t think of one single event. I think the most likely scenario is that it’s overuse. I do a lot of exercise that puts force through my knees. Olympic Lifting involves jumping with weights, although I’m not running as much I’m still doing interval training and I’ve added in a fair bit of plyometric training recently with TRX bootcamps and Ignite workouts. Perhaps I’ve tweaked it doing something and then exacerbated that by continuing to train instead of resting. I don’t know.
Anyway, it’s meant that the Ignite workouts have been off the cards for me this week. In reality I’m not going to be able to do them for the rest of the four week programme. Even if I had the most miraculous of recoveries it wouldn’t be wise to go straight back into exercise that involves a lot of jumping. There are a couple of workouts that I might be able to do with some modifications but for now my priority is looking after this knee.
So as ever when I’ve been injured it’s been a case of finding things I can do instead of the things that I can’t. When you’ve got to keep your weight off your knee that’s basically only exercises you can do while sitting down, so my upper body has been getting a fair amount of attention. I’ve done a few strength sessions and managed to work up a nice sweat doing a weighted cardio session as well.
As I’ve mentioned before the Ignite workouts are only part of the equation. My accountability pledge still remains and in some ways becomes even more important now that my workouts are more limited. I’ve changed one of my goals from steps (not a great goal to have when you’ve been told to stay off your feet!) to staying in calorie deficit. This week is my peak Christmas party week and while I want to relax and have a good time I also don’t want to undo all my hard work from the last few months.
I’m trying not to get frustrated about my knee and instead concentrate on the positives. I get to spend some time working on my upper body strength which will hopefully help me towards one of my long term goals of a pull up, and also gives me an excuse for some gun shows!
Ignite will be launching in the New Year and I hope that my knee has recovered enough that I’ll be able to join in. But you don’t have to wait until then to take advantage of Julia’s online gym. One of the things that I realised this week is just how many exercises I know, having worked out with Julia for a few years now. I’ve been able to put together sessions that work for me – something I would really have struggled with in the past.
Julia has just launched a winter special offer which has seen the membership price slashed by an amazing 70% to under £10 per month. Christmas really has come early – to give yourself the gift of fitness this Christmas you can join by clicking here
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From Strength to Strength 
Love your attitude Becca – it’d take more than a dodgy knee to hold you back! x
Thanks Julia – it certainly will!