Recapture

This blog has been down for a rather long time, but since I revoked my other blog (Swedish Fear Culture) I got inspiration to write some in this as well. I have not been able to continue my running exercises the last ½year, I got injured? last winter after a normal exercise. I was running in cold winter up north in Sweden, about -4˚C and some snow on the streets, rather icy conditions. I was very careful because of the slippery track and probably tried to avoid a slide with my recovered knee (my right limb). Getting a slide with a floppy knee with no cross-ligaments to speak about is somewhat a nightmare, and probably something I'm mentally very aware of. After doing my 5 km´s I was back, stretching a little too hard (with such cold limbs) but no sense of that something was wrong. The morning after my left knee! was very stiff, I had to limp the whole day. For several days was this stiffness going on, worsened by sitting. But I had no pain during motion. Walking seemed to ease up a little bit. After two weeks the problem was gone and I tried some running again. No sense of stiffness or pain directly after exercise but next day, now with pain. I had to take some ketuprofen cream on my knee to get some release. Again, walking was alright. Slowly, I tried to get into running again - but the knee was not happy.

My own analyse of this problem is that I have captured a meniscus problem. Something that needs medical treatment. I'd like to visit my old orthopaedics again to discuss this but I haven't really decided yet. This time I must visit a private clinic, i.e. I have to pay the bills myself. My alternative plan is to increase muscle strength in the left knee as well so I've joined a gym club. Three times a week I'll visit the gym with a rather fixed training schedule. I used to do lots of gym in my younger years and I´ve also been back a couple of times the last 25 years so it is a quite well-known activity. The schedule consists of:

- 10 mins of bike exercise, last min sprint to max pulse
- three exercises for abdomen, torso and back, 40-100 reps.
- one exercise for breast muscles ,3o erps.
- one exercise for upper back and lats, 30 reps.
- one exercise for leg (quadriceps), 30-40 reps. per leg
- one exercise biceps, 30 reps.
- one exercise triceps, 30 reps.

I perform this in a rather high tempo, mixing and changing between muscle groups, and it lasts for approx. 40-45 mins. It should be quite similar to a running exercise that long, I expect the average pulse to be at the same level. I've been doing this for 1½ month now or so and it is really nice. My body is responding by swelling, the capillaries in my old muscles increase much faster than any fiber growth and you can see the evidence by looking at your muscles now being a lot more red than a month ago. But you need to be really careful with your ligaments, these are not at all that flexible as they were 20 years ago. I can feel some aching and stiffness in some of them and you have to remind yourself all the time to hold back in weights. We'll see if this will have effect or not on my bad knee (left one).