Achilles Rupture Recovery

Woke up in the middle of a weird and slightly disturbing dream this morning: wringing the neck of a goose that was doomed for the oven. No idea where that came from … no plans to cook anyone’s goose 😅, never killed an animal before (assuming flies and mosquitoes don’t count!) … buuut am not a vegetarian. Although I’ve toyed with the idea before, tried eating vegetarian and even vegan diets for short periods, I’ve remained a steadfast meat-eater despite my mum being a vegetarian from before I was born. This has seemed inconsistent in the past already on occasion … and it REALLY bothered me as I lay in bed this morning. For whatever reason.

My (lack of) consistency with the rehab physio has been bothering me more and more the last few weeks too – I think since a bit before Christmas, really; last week was, I think, the height of my inconsistency. And THAT’s really bothering me too … it is just sooo incongruent to pay a significant sum of money for the Achilles Rebuild and then be anything other than as consistent as possible with the drills. I mean, it’s not like I’m not doing them at all … but the lower body strength once a week … kinda pathetic, when it could (should) be min. twice and really three times a week. The ankle mobility and strength

Both factors have lead to me putting on about 2kg in 15 weeks … on the one hand, some might say, could be worse; on the other, I was already too heavy before the injury and now I’m at over 68kg / 150lbs (which for someone at 168cm / 5’6″ coupled with a slim build is just way too much). No surprise that my jeans didn’t fit last Friday (well, I kinda squeezed into them, but they were super tight); I refuse to resort to an ex-colleague’s ‘solution’ as well: “Just buy the next size up!” he said.

Still … to move away from that slight touch of ‘doom n gloom’ for a moment: yes, the numbers on the scales are not great … buuut on the positive side, look at those bare feet! Yup, first time standing normally without boot or shoe in 3.5 months 👏 💪 🥳 … it’s pulling a bit still, but not hideously so; think it’s time for the wedges to go, other than maybe the walks to and from work and then maybe in another week or so, should be zero problem to finally start walking around the flat in bare feet 🤞.

Then there are the crutches: still using ’em for the work stretches … just to counteract the rucksack, really, make sure I don’t get tired before I reach work or home whilst enabling a reasonable pace (approx. 12min/km, step length more or less back to normal at around 70-75cm).

A relatively long visit to a supplier’s place led to a swollen foot – no pain, directly from the swelling, but again a 1cm or so thick puffy area; on top of that, low level pain in the mid-foot area.

“Ein guter Mensch”.

Positive moment: I went out for a “Currywurst mit Pommes” with my sons who live with me in the evening … the 15yr old even took his homework with him and proceeded to do it on the table in the pub. I really appreciate being able to have time like this with my kids: them simply being there is, of course, one aspect; I also love the fact that we can do this and have a great laugh together, even on the 1km walk there and back!

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One of the highlights of the week: after a fun bouldering session (still just low-level traverses!) with a short upper body session on the upper level, my friend and colleague (yes, the one who took me to hospital exactly 16 weeks ago) & I went over to the climbing hall.

Since I was already warmed up, I hit a VI (5.9 in the US) and, somewhat surprised, topped out (except for the last holds above the automatic belay height); climbing down I had to grab for other holds, so it wasn’t a totally ‘clean’ (up & down) climb but I cracked it, for sure!

After a short pause, during which my friend topped out on a parallel route, we headed outside – almost felt like spring, with the sun on our backs as we faced the climbing wall.

A VI- (5.8) looked inviting, heading into a bit of overhang – I’d cracked one of the parallel easier routes with similar overhang, so I thought, “Doable!”. The video my friend took shows I wasn’t wrong 😁 😎 – man, that was a good feeling!!

He and I went on to complete a V+ (5.7) before calling it a day … and heading off to the bistro for a ‘well-deserved’ beer.

Ankle Mobility: Currently, this unit consists of a) scar massage (also non-ops), b) ankle pump, c) active inversion and eversion, d) seated ankle dance, e) seated heel slide, f) sit-on-heels (ankle plantarflexion stretch); to round off: 3 gait drills, a) weight shift progression, b) march-in-place, and c) step through.
Consistency: I do some exercises really every day, some multiple times; I ‘ticked this off’ this unit for all days this week … I pretty much never do them all as one block, with the gait drills often done (or similar) whilst out walking (they’re done with shoes on anyway).

Ankle Strength: Starts with a) 8 x plantarflexion isometric, b) 12 x banded ankle eversion, c) inversion, d) and plantar flexion, e) seated weighted calf raise (20kg / 45lbs), f) double leg calf raise – bridge/supine, g) double leg calf raise – straight, h) single leg balance.
Consistency: this is the least-clearly-consistent set of exercises this week … Thu/Fri I marked them in the Achilles.Rebuild app as ‘not met’ – I’d done some double leg calf raises and a couple of the others, but really not well-defined enough to consider the entire unit as ‘done’.

Lower Body Strength: 1 set comprises of heel elevated a) 10 x goblet squats (17kg / 37lbs), b) 10 x kettlebell RDLs (20kg / 45lbs); c) wall sit (90s), d) 10 x straight leg calf raise (non-affected only, now weighted with 5kg), e) 10 x bent knee side plank/leg raise (each side), f) 10 x glute bridges, g) 10 x supine resisted hip flexion (each side), h) 10 x bent knee calf raise (non-affected leg only, still unweighted).
Consistency: I think this is the first week since I started, where I actually did 2 sets a day, 3 days a week (Tue/Thu/Sat). The time effort for this is about 35-40 mins (with setup and all); what with Tue & Thu being remote working days, there really is no excuse to get this well-defined, in the meantime easy to carry out unit done. Here I want to build up to 3 sets a day and, before too long, have a couple of additional exercises added to widen the exercise coverage.

< NOTE: all exercises have been demonstrated via video snippet in earlier posts, will try and link later >

Walking: the main thing here, other than daily stuff (which includes plenty of short <1km stretches a day, but rarely anything longer), was doing the 2.5km / 1.5mile round with Fini in the sun on Saturday.

Cycling: Still doing just stationary bike, 30min x 120W, no boot. Despite keeping a pretty constant cadence of around 80, my pulse depends heavily on a) regulated slow breathing, but also b) how well I’ve slept, and c) what I was doing just before cycling. Maybe all obvious, but I hadn’t expected such variance … with cycling outside it doesn’t really ever happen that you have exactly the same set of conditions, so I, personally, am seeing this for the first time.

(Note: as already pasted in before, see here for benefits of low load cycling for Achilles rehab)

Climbing: still sticking to two sessions a week, on Tuesday and Sunday; still also wearing the boot – Chris has recommended doing so until the point of successfully doing at least one good SLR.

Exercise sessions: < still not really sure if this is the best way to display these stats … 🤔 >