Achilles Rupture Recovery

Some perspective and the Achilles.Rebuild on-boarding call

(2025.11.17-11.23)

Monday: Forgot a few things from last week … one of them, my walking asymmetry (as measured by my iPhone 16 pro in my pocket – no iWatch). Apple states: “In a healthy walking pattern, the timing of the steps you take with each foot is very similar … uneven walking patterns, such as limping, can be a sign of disease, injury or other health issues. An even or symmetrical walk is often an important physical therapy goal when recovering from injury.” (note: so this doesn’t measure actual symmetry in the complete sense, rather just the timing of the steps, as I interpret and observe it).

Certainly, I could see a dramatic change on / directly after the day of my injury (see end of the week 1 entry); in the meantime, I can see a steadily improving picture as I ramp up the PWB to FWB, dropping one of the crutches, naturally stepping up the pace (without rushing!), and doing ‘batches’ of crutchless walking:

Now, I take this all with a ‘pinch of salt’, I’m really not a body statistic person (any more) … but there’s no doubting the trend as I get closer to ‘normal’ walking; last week’s step average was a bit shy of 5k, by the way … I AM still convinced that walking is one of the foundation keys to recover … but, as always, where do you start and where do you stop? Nobody can tell you … other than a vague, “listen to your body!” (and then there are others who’ll tell you, you can’t even always trust your body, sometimes you just don’t feel pain until it’s too late 🙄 ).

Anyway, removed the 5 degree freedom last night before I went to bed … but something just felt a little odd, probably unbased, but felt a little uneasy on the first night like that; re-released it this lunchtime at work (now going into the office Mon + Wed), feels fine today, will not touch it tonight … expect the next adjustment to be in a few days, because it really hasn’t made too much difference, no pain or anything negative I can feel.

Second ‘proper’ physio (as opposed to ‘just’ lymph drainage) this evening at 6:40 pm – again, a ‘holistic’ session with the same boulderer PT (local PT ‘A’) as last week … REALLY appreciate his help, because it’s – again – helped to remove all of the pain from elsewhere in my ‘movement apparatus’. (primarily in the back, slightly to the right of the spine, kind of rear hip). Again, it unfortunately didn’t last more than 24 hours … but it’s really made me stop and think about my posture … and now I notice how my pelvis tips to one side (the same side, and the one that hurts) when I’m standing. So THAT’s a point I’m taking to the next session with him next week …

Positive Moment(s): Actually, had lots, again … hence I thought I’d start adding these on a daily basis. For example: the brief time with my 15 yr old at 5:30-6:00 chatting & making sandwiches for him for the train ride to school; coffee with my partner afterwards (and our cute little doggo … well, she doesn’t get any coffee of course, but …); the youngest colleague on my team coming to pick me up in his super cool 4.2l V8 Audi S5 as the Deutsche Bahn (German trains) left me hanging in the morning; the AMAZINGLY comfortable lounge chair another colleague brought into work just for me to be able to take a short rest and get my foot up on (plus she brought home-made cookies too 🤩); good work chats and progress in the office; travelling home on the train with my 15 yr old talking with him (and making him laugh – RESULT 🙌 !); the gradually receding ‘static’ pain in my foot (caused solely by inactivity) as I slowly step up the easy ROM exercises I do; the super positive physio; a beer in the pub afterwards with my partner before she heads off to her eldest daughter’s place tomorrow (with our cute little doggo … for 5 days 🥹); lasagne for dinner, made by our neighbours (my eldest son and his girlfriend!); okay, that’ll do, pig!

Milestone(s): ‘Motored’ the 800-900m to the physio this evening on one crutch in just 12 mins … without rushing and with just approx 2-3% walking asymmetry (again: pinch of salt 😅 ); had to stop myself going up the stairs two at a time at the physio place I was on such a roll … would have been very ironic to fall down the stairs doing that at the physio practice 🤣 !

Tuesday: Was up relatively early again (5:30am) to make sandwiches for my 15yr old before he left for school – this is actually a positive start to the day: we really interact, there are laughs (ok, only some of the time, he’s 15 and occasionally in time stress to catch the train), plus I know he’s going to get something decent to eat on the way to school.

Afterwards, some work; then made ‘egg mayo’ sandwiches for my partner who was driving 300km to her eldest daughter (and granddaughter) … enough ‘egg mayo’ mix, as planned, for her, my step-daughter and my partner’s ex-mother-in-law (who is lovely). But then there was lots left over as my partner ended up driving alone (except for our little ‘black carpet’ of a doggo) for a mixture of reasons. Still, no complaints – made for a good elevenses for me at the boulder gym 😁!

This Tuesday’s ‘bouldering’ session actually saw me do a little bit of exercise 😅: mild stretching (not the ‘affected’ leg), some press-ups, a (very) little core work … certainly nothing spectacular, actually very chaotic, I just suddenly thought, if I’m going there anyway, I really should do something. Need to get that a little more organised.

After the last Tuesday Teams meetings were done, I got cooking some lemon chicken soup again – my eldest daughter was coming over for dinner and to stay the night so she could give me a lift to work the next day. It’s lovely having her company and her brothers enjoy her presence too! Shame that my youngest daughter can’t join us … but she’s studying a couple of hundred km away.

Once the food was all prepared, I put my feet up – despite frequent rests, I really notice my foot swelling, which drives me to the comfort of my bed … boot off, massage the foot, ROM movements and airing. And then I remembered I’d asked my daughter to bring a tape measure – I was interested to see what kind of measurable atrophy had my calves already … approx. 1cm on the circumference -> 3%. Is that usual for 4 weeks … ? Of course, as the bone stays the same, subcutaneous fat too, that obviously represents a much larger percantage atrophy for the affected muscles 😔.

Positive Moment(s): Family time – short and sweet for a change ^^!

Milestone(s): I finally cut the toe nails on my affected foot for the first time since the accident – I had been really worried about how I was going to be able to manipulate the individual toes to be able to get to the nails and see what I was doing without pulling the foot into dorsiflexion … but actually, once I’d lost the fear, and took my time, it really wasn’t so difficult. Sometimes I overthink things 🙈.

Wednesday: A more relaxed start to the day – ‘Buß- und Bettag’ (Day of Repentance and Prayer) is a school holiday in Bavaria … although my 15 yr old still had to go due to choir practice (for whatever reason moved from Monday 🙄), he at least didn’t have to be there until 10am. Thus we had chance for a chilled breakfast: my eldest son (who lives across the corridor with his girlfriend in a separate apartment) joined us; he and my eldest daughter tidied up / hoovered the living room afterwards, moved the sofa to give me space to walk ‘on camera’ … today was the date of the ‘onboarding’ video call with the USA Achilles tendon sport rehab specialist, Chris Smith: the living room has enough space for whatever walking / sitting / etc. views he’s going to want to see.

Work was good: made some progress on one of the late stages of a product certification – this is where a product goes through a bunch of tests to make sure it fulfills the safety and electromagnetic conformity laws. The latest product to go through these initial tests just did really well in almost all of them … buuuut only just almost all the tests. So my colleagues and I worked on a solution to what is hopefully going to prove to get this product through these tests and onto the market … a first step on the road to ‘debugging’ the (very minor, single aspect of) non-conformity of this particular product. Par for the course with early development.

Minor digression moment – Debugging (‘problem solving’): We all do it, some more than others, some more successfully than others. Much the same as with risk management: “Do I have enough petrol to get where I’m going to?” is a simple, every day form of considering potential risks, possible effects and ways and methods to mitigate these – most people do this around 200-500 times a day, in general without even realising they’re doing it. Similarly, ‘debugging’ is a word many may not be familiar with, or perhaps maximum in connection with software programs.

Yet this is also something everyone does everyday, whether they realise it or not, in order to detect the causes of and solve problems; a couple of active and conscious examples: during sports like my beloved bouldering, to solve a route, or to try and figure out why the damn washing machine isn’t pumping out the drained off water 😬 … everyone can learn and get better at it, for all areas in life, and it’s what I’ll be doing for various (body mechanics and health) problems over the next few months … I can see it coming, as I get deeper and deeper into physio, in order (with support from Chris and the local physio team) to get my partially broken body up and running again. BTW: I can heartily recommend a short, brilliant and surprisingly entertaining book on the subject: “Debugging: The 9 Indispensable Rules” … not just for engineers, I promise, also great for solving those everyday problems … like dying plants, a leaky roof or the aforementioned washing machine! < end of digression >

A team lunch of pizza followed, a short feet-up session on the newly installed office sun lounger, then it was off back home before the afternoon meetings started – a busy afternoon intertwining work with private moments, an evening more or less finished off with helping my 15 yr old go over some maths for a school test tomorrow. Man am I proud of him, how he’s managed to turn his school work around in the last 9 months … slowly (quickly?) turning from a boy into a young man.

Also, the initial video call with Chris Smith (https://www.instagram.com/achilles.rebuild/ also https://theachillesrebuild.com/blog/) was really good. I have to be honest, I’d had some concerns from the start, particularly stumbling across him on Instagram of all places (although, why not? Great, if that platform can be useful for things, as it seems to be on the odd occasion); never transferred a significant sum of money to anyone I’ve not met personally; as someone with a serious injury, you are, of course, a perfect target for scammers. However, his personal account is coupled to his professional one … he shows over 10 years of his private life, where you see his 4 children come into his wife’s and his life one by one, along with other things too. He just seems so passionate. Then there are the people he’s helped who’ve linked to him too – it all seemed pretty compelling, certainly enough to take a ‘leap of faith’.

The first call I had with him before I joined his program was helpful, the communication afterwards too; this initial video call today just allayed the last niggling doubts I’d had: he took an hour to give me a thorough intro, answer any and all questions, stepped me through a handful of movements / exercises … thorough, patient, without being over-demanding, always making sure I was comfortable.

Obviously it’s too soon to recommend him … at just over 4 weeks it’s too early for me to ‘really get to work’ in any case (although there are some daily things to be done at a low level) – that’ll slowly start in around a couple of weeks. He did ok me already to get on a stationary bike (with the boot); additionally, he felt pretty sure I’d get back to doing the first easy climbs in a few weeks – I’d said, IF I was ready, it’d be a great Christmas present to myself to do a first ‘super easy’ route on an automatic belay (again, with the boot – the climbing hall owner already ok’d this too). At the moment ,I’m confident that anyone following this journal will be able to make his/her own mind-up from my writings without me directly recommending him as time goes by.

Thursday: A day of remote working. Although, ended up taking a half day holiday because, now that I’m reasonably mobile, I can start catching up on all the cleaning and other jobs which have slowly piled up. I mean, my two lads who are living with me are pretty helpful … but the 15 yr old has to go to school, and the (30km) train journeys mean the days are fairly long for him (although he still does his own laundry, for example); the 27 yr old can and does help with lots of things, like cleaning the bathroom / kitchen, doing the dishwasher, going shopping, etc. And still, there are plenty of things that I can and want to do myself now that I’m able to.

Then there was the local physio again (lymph drainage) – it’s really nice … feel like I’m in great hands, super relaxing and helpful. Does take a while, though … not so much the physio itself (that flies past in a blink of an eye, unfortunately 🥹 !), but getting fully showered directly beforehand, with a fresh boot inlay (it’s becoming a safe routine, but still takes a while, being careful), walking the 800m or so up there (and today it was starting to snow, just gently, but you still have to be extra cautious that you don’t slip), making sure I’m early enough, etc. etc. Oh yes, and super ironic: it turns out that the owner of the physio practice I’m going to actually ruptured his Achilles … taking the stairs to his own practice two at a time 🙈.

Yet another reason for extra non-work time: the start of the Achilles Rebuild program has ‘gone live’ for me on the app today after the on-boarding yesterday. Although it’s an ‘easy’ start – no real hard work, ‘just’ ankle / toe mobility 😅 – there are quite a few exercises, nicely lined up with video instructions, so it took a little while just to go through, watch the vids, try them out, make sure I knew what I was supposed to be doing … and then actually do the reps.

Oh yeah … and if I’m being really honest: I’ve started re-watching the first 4 series of ‘Stranger Things’ in the run up to the 5th series finally coming out on the 29th November … so am taking off tomorrow as well so no guilty conscience if I end up binge-watching tonight and needing to sleep in tomorrow 😬.

Positive Moment(s): Physio, of course, plus mobility exercises (I expect it may get boring … but the ankle mobility program at the moment is a moment where I connect with my body; it also doesn’t take tooo long … and I can feel progress pretty much every day). Also, I not only enjoy the fresh air on the skin of my foot (the skin is finally beginning to recover), but also the feel of the duvet cover as I move my foot back and forth across it is great. Getting on for a month since I’ve felt cotton on my foot like this to any extent (certainly without fear) … weird how such theoretically minor things, which one doesn’t usually even think about, can become significant sensory pleasures.

Whilst doing and enjoying this, I can’t help but consider those less fortunate, who are, for example, paralysed from the waist (or even neck!) down, or simply don’t have legs any more … those who will never feel this simple yet fantastic sensation ever again … getting this kind of perspective (if you have an injury like this and can take ‘a few steps back’ – not always easy!) really helps to bolster the psyche, I think.

I’ll spare you pictures of above ‘pleasures’, though 😁 … we’re not on onlyfans here 🤣.

Milestone(s): Recognising how absolutely SHIT I am at ‘toe yoga‘ 😅 … didn’t say they were all going to be positive milestones, did I ^^?!

Minor digression moment – “It’s ‘only’ a tendon!”: I’m reminded of a well-known guy around here who was born without arms; he goes shopping, even in the freezing cold, with just sandals on so that he can kick them off and use his feet to put his shopping into a satchel; unbelievably flexible, with strong legs and feet, he’s well-versed in martial arts; strong enough to ask for help when he needs it too. When he needs it.

“It’s ‘just’ a torn tendon,” I think to myself again … in 6 months, 9 months, a year (or maybe 2 … or maybe 3 …), I’ll be walking, running, bouldering, biking once again; his arms won’t be growing back ‘so soon’. And in fact, looking at how fast this last month has gone by, a year really doesn’t seem so long… actually almost frighteningly short; the number of winters turning into spring, spring into summer, etc., not so many either. Better make the most of every day … < end of digression >

Back home I go through the first ’round’ of lower body strength work from the Achilles Rebuild program (once every three days initially, independent of the affected foot, it’s there to keep everything else working that isn’t affected); took a while, making sure I understand and can do the exercises (as well as I can), but the videos are good and I film a rep of each exercise as I do it to check form (and give Chris the chance to give me feedback); after that the ankle mobility section, like yesterday, from the safety of my bed: the cool floor of my bedroom under the sole of my affected foot … another ‘estranged and then re-united’ (pleasant) experience for my skin. Feels good to start on the path to (active) recovery.

Positive Moment(s): the spontaneous ‘ridding myself of a crutch’ gesture in the snowy, deserted park; seeing the positive trend on my walking asymmetry (even if it’s ‘just’ the timing, and not the actual symmetry or gait):

Milestone (even though it has nothing to do with ruptured tendons): don’t laugh … I finished re-watching Stranger Things series 1. Ok, you know what, be my guest – go ahead and laugh 😅! Actually, as much as I’m a sucker for such science fantasy stories, one of the coolest things in this case is seeing all the stuff from the early ’80s, like the walkie-talkies, kids’ bikes … and the Atari gaming console! Also, the main characters are about the same age as I was back in ’82-’85, playing Dungeons & Dragons just the same as I was with my nerdy friends. That’s how old I am 👴 😁 !

Saturday: it’s snowing. I mean, I’m REALLY grateful for the run of mild, dry weather that came (as if it had been ordered specially to help me get used to crutches) around the time of my rupture. But it’s Bavaria here … and it’s end of November … so snow and ice is pretty much par for the course, the -7°C / 20°F we had overnight too – it had to come at some point.

So as I headed out to the weekly market, I was very glad of the VACOped boot cover. In fact, I just ordered a second one yesterday (along with a third inlay plus another 5 socks), as I’m sure it’s going to end up getting wet inside due to snow or slush sooner or later … plus, the first signs of wear’n’tear on the sole are appearing:

One uncomfortable thing I did notice this morning, however, as I headed out: the knee of my affected side complained a little for the first couple of hundred steps. Understandable: it’s being badly (read ‘incorrectly’) loaded, not how nature meant it to be used – this injury combined with any boot plus FWB walking is going to lead to this kind of problem if you ‘put too many miles on it’, I guess. It’s a sign not to overdo it on the being mobile side of things at this early stage, as happy as I am to slowly ‘de-crutching’ my life. Dear body: I shall take heed 🤗 … and do my best not to fuck up those parts of you still working like they should!!

The Saturday market: a traditional affair where you can buy all of that good food produce you really need (as opposed to most of the crud they sell in a hypermarket). My personal favourite is the Greek food stand – delicious, exclusively vegetarian stuff, a culinary highlight of my family’s week (although none of us are vegetarians, many meals are meat-free in our household).

However, it’s not just the great food which brightens up my day, rather, the guy who owns and runs it (who also prepares quite a lot of the stuff himself) – he is just sooo cheerful, despite his really long, hard-working days:

Back home, after a tasty breakfast, some hot coffee, the ritual morning call with my partner (when we can’t be together for the coffee ‘in person’) and a rest on the bed with my feet up (the Greek stand is popular, even at 8am you have to queue -> foot swelling 🥹), I posted for the first time ever on Reddit – I felt the ‘de-crutching’ vid from yesterday captured my good mood nicely, certainly it makes me smile … so maybe, hopefully, it might just lift the mood of someone else out there who’s perhaps not doing so well!

And yes, juuust in case you’re still wondering: I’m still uber-shit at the toe yoga stuff (the ankle mobility exercises are a daily thing). Yes, I know it’s only been a couple of days so my expectations were not high. But go look at that link and try it for yourself if you don’t know what I’m talking about! And if you haven’t had an Achilles tendon rupture … well, you haven’t had a freakin’ rupture, so go figure that it might just be a little easier for you than it is for me 😅! (and actually … my unaffected foot is not much better 🤪 ).

Positive Moment(s): Whilst sorting waaaay too many days’ worth of laundry this morning 🙈 , I had an epiphany and realised one advantage (albeit veeery small) of this injury – no sorting and pairing of socks … so there’s that 🥳 ! Cooked a reasonable ‘Spaghetti Solognese’ for dinner 🍝.

Milestone(s): the ‘opening up’ of the next 5 degrees of ROM (now a huuuuge 😅 30°-20°).

Sunday: So … the 5° extra ROM on the VACOped? Turns out … it is actually (subjectively at least) a HUUGE difference. I had to dial it back; opened it up today again, but only after I’d been for a walk in the sun – 1.5km on the 25° setting, no crutches, no problem; inside on the 20° setting, one step feels like I’m going in the direction of imminent re-rupture. Hard to describe … but it just pulls on the calf and tendon about 10 times stronger than on the 25° setting. So I resorted to using both crutches again to take maybe 30-40% of my weight … and take small steps … and then it was handleable. Did a couple of hundred steps like that in the appartment then turned it back, again, to 25°. Cannot imagine what it would be like to go from 30° to 15° in one step … and I actually have a gel heel insert which probably softens it a little as well. That was sobering. And I expect it’s going to get progressively worse with each 5° 😬.

The toe yoga and foot doming exercises are … challenging too; at least the toe yoga I can kind of practise whilst lying on the bed, typing on the laptop. Don’t laugh until you’ve tried it … my unaffacted foot isn’t sooo much better, so yours might not be either 😜. But it is slowly but surely getting better (read ‘less disastrous’).

Another sobering epiphany: my gait is fucked. Don’t know if it was like this even before the rupture … but it probably was – certainly it would explain the pains on the backside of my right hip. I noticed a couple of days ago that, when I’m standing, I kind of ‘sag’ on my affected side – could be explained, I suppose, by not wanting to load that side and it’s less effort to stand ‘sagged’ over to the right when the right leg is bent or even in the air than it is to stand straight. The same effect is visible when I walk, with a kind of (optical) ‘clicking’. At least I seem to have figured out how to get the iPhone into the ‘selfie stick’ so that I can film myself walking … so there’s that 😅! I expect either the physio practice and / or Chris will say, yeah, we can sort that out 🙏 … and give me some more ‘fun’ exercises to do – whoop whoop 🥹.

As I was out walking I did however also realise that with someone else walking next to me, who has a healthy walk, I can better gauge both steps of the same length as well as a ‘symmetrical’ gait (with respect to time per foot) – a bit like music in the ears but a stimulus via the eyes (I guess a metronome in the ear might be even better); additionally, the pavement in the town is made up of small ’tiles’ so that you can fairly easily measure (relatively speaking) your stride length(s) and compare left to right. Will make use of this in the next days when the weather is good, maybe find a spot where I can do a regular filming of my gait.

Positive Moment(s): Fresh crisp air and sunshine walking outside with my 27 yr old son; backlog of laundry including bedding all done and dealt with 💪 🙌 !

Milestone(s): First time I changed my bedding since the accident 🙈 – usually I’ll do this every 2 weeks, love the feeling of fresh bedding, best of all after a bath … but this just slipped so far down on a list of priorities; this weekend, with no need for crutches in the appartment and feeling ready to tackle more mundane tasks, it was time! Oh yeah … like I already said, not all milestones are going to be positive: my right (‘affected’) calf is now down to about 35.5cm -> around 6% atrophy. And, again, that measurement includes things like a) bones, b) subcutaneous fat, and c) other things which aren’t going to have changed (or in the case of the ‘fat’, perhaps even gone up 😬 ), so the percentage loss on the muscle front is going to be waaaay higher than 6%. A wild guess would put it at maybe 15-20%. Maybe more.

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