Achilles Rupture Recovery

Walking: In general, wrt everyday ‘about town’ walks, normality has really returned; even a heavy rucksack has ceased to be a problem on short walks.

In addition, at the Thursday physio appointment, I got there early and hopped on the treadmill; I fairly quickly wound the speed up to 5.4km/h and had about a km behind me by the time my PT came – he considered my gait for a couple of minutes, from behind, the side … his verdict was, he couldn’t see anything at all that wasn’t fine 👏 💪 !! (I had been wondering if any ‘bad habits’ might have crept in over the last few weeks)

Cycling: After starting the week with a 20min 200W session which saw my pulse reaching 163 (hence the session included a couple of short breaks 😅), I decided to approach this is a bit more like running … i.e. cardio is supposed to be cardio (and not zone 5); for improving the peak performance, intervals probably make more sense – the practice, unfortunately, doesn’t have an attack bike … but I can simulate it by turning up and down the wattage load. This just occurred to me as I’m writing this 😅 🙈.

Thursday saw a more relaxed return to a steady 30min 120W.

(Note: see here for benefits of low load cycling for Achilles rehab)

My writing has slowly morphed from a therapeutical daily journal to something I don’t seem to find time for; despite the fact I’ve been driving for over 2 weeks, free time per day seems to have become more scarce. Both of these ‘observartions’ are, of course, purely a shift of my subjective take on daily life – even taking into account that the Deutsche Bahn (German national train company) has had to cancel the stretch I used until minimum end of April … which means I’m driving my son to school every day.

Indeed, when one says, “Sorry, I just didn’t find the time!” it is simply a different way of saying, “Sorry, it just wasn’t important enough to me!”. In general, this is a driving force – most likely THE driving force in the vast majority of cases – behind why people don’t do their PT exercises. Me included.

Another reason I have found, however, is the force of habit. That is, the force of habit of NOT doing those exercises. Suddenly, your life is turned upside down; once you get to the point of doing useful exercises (which is pretty much going to be around weeks 3-4, even if it’s then ‘only’ light mobility stuff), that habit of NOT doing exercises every day has to be broken. I’ve found that hard.

The key to the start of it has been fixing a morning routine which can be varied – without guilt – wrt how long it takes. This was a really important aspect (or pair of aspects really): getting in a unit that is going to take at least 45 minutes, directly after getting up, means for most people either going to bed 45 mins earlier or having 45 mins less sleep. Neither is particularly appealing.

In my case, to crack the first aspect (developing a new habit), I worked with Chris to get an exercise unit that a) can be done every day, and b) can be shortened, if I run into time problems – instead of 3 sets, I do 2 or perhaps just 1 set … which brings down the approx. 35 mins to just 15 mins … and that makes it REALLY hard to justify that in my head. Here, the second aspect comes into play: no guilt … since even doing 1 set is better than doing no sets.

While this may all seem logical – it does seem kind of ‘duuuh!’ as I re-read it – it’s taken me over 3 months to get to this point. With this long-term injury, however, I’m long since at the point where I re-frame this as, “It’s only taken me 3 months to get to this point!”.

This morning habit is here to stay, I’m convinced of this. It requires no weights, bands or anything that I need to think about taking with me … so there’s also no excuse or reason not to carry on whilst away from home.

What will surely change, bit by bit, is which exercises I’m doing. I do expect this unit to slowly morph as the weeks and months go by to a) take into account of what stage my recovery is at, and b) at some point no longer be rehab-specific, rather a “mobile for life” unit.

For all this and that, I have my Achilles rupture to thank. Another silver lining.

A series of ernest talks with various colleagues about the need for changes; positive reception for my ideas … except uncertainty from all (including me) regarding my own future position.

Wednesday saw me talking to my ‘shoe brother’, Gotta-ask, for the first time – it was a time-gated chat, due to meetings before and after on my side, but nevertheless, it was GREAT! Always nice to put a voice to a person … and it’s so much more dynamic than messaging (as much as I appreciate that side of things too