Explosive & Ping

I had what I thought was going to be my last physical therapy appointment on Friday. Alas, it was not. I have one more. At least. As one of my roommates from college used to say, "Heavy sigh."

Part of me wants to be done and say my knee is good enough. I can walk, run and bike. I can ski and Zumba. Shouldn't that be good enough?

At the beginning of this process, my physical therapist and surgeon asked me what my goals were for recovery. I listed a bunch of stuff, like walk my dog, ski and play tennis. All of that was fine. I didn't realize it at the time because I couldn't foresee what my knee would be like a year later, but my real goal was to be able to move without restriction, that I could do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. I wanted a normal knee.

I went into see Evan last Friday, and I complained. In fairness, he asked me how it is going. I take this to mean "tell me what isn't good" versus "tell me it is all good." I do tell him the good news. I told him that I had been skiing and I am taking Zumba classes, which are two significant milestones. I also told him my knee isn't as jumpy and responsive as I want it to be.

"I feel like I wouldn't be able to play tennis yet," I said. "I feel like my knee is strong, but it is sluggish. I am not sure I could chase the ball and move quickly enough."

"You need to work on explosiveness," he said. I never thought explosiveness was a tangible thing. When I hear explosiveness in the context of athletics, I think of an adjective sportscasters picked up in a thesaurus to describe basketball stars. "Explosiveness" makes it sound like I want to be a future receive for the Seahawks or play tennis against Serena Williams. Which is cool. "Explosive" is a real thing which means the opposite of sluggish. I want to be explosive. It means agile and sprightly and spry, so I can bounce and dance a jig when I want to.

In prior weeks, I was focusing on building up the final bits of strength so both legs would be equally strong. I finally passed all three strength tests (barely on the one-hop test).

"You are fine on your percentages comparing left to right, but you don't look good when you jump on the left leg," Evan said. To a person who hasn't been to physical therapy as long as I have been going to Evan, this might sound like a huge insult. It is not, especially since I knew how awful I looked jumping on my left leg compared to the right. I would stick the landing on my right leg, but would often double jump on the left leg. Not only do I have a hard time sticking the landing, but I also looked like a windmill flapping my arms to keep my balance when I landed. If my legs were gymnasts competing against each other, my right leg would get a gold medal and my left leg would be in fifth place, which is remarkable since there are only two athletes in this competition.

Evan gave me some new hopping exercises to work on to help me stick my landings. This is all good, but I wonder how much is too much. Do I really need these extra exercises, or is this unnecessary polish?

I really need these exercises. It isn't a matter of having the perfect knee, it is more about having my left leg feel equal to my right. I think back to what Evan told me a few appointments ago: when your body doesn't have symmetry, it pings your brain that something is wrong. When I flail when I land my left leg, my brain doesn't need to give me a gentle ping. It screams at me at those times. Most often, it is a quiet "ping" letting me know that I am not in balance.

I want to be in balance. I want the pinging to stop. That's not polish--that is feeling back to normal.