Darn

I'm currently healing up my left knee from a meniscus injury. (update: turns out to not be the meniscus, it's chondromalacia). I don't know yet whether it's torn or not, since the approval for the MRI is still winding its way through my health insurance bureaucracy. This little problem happened when I got over-enthusiastic about going up an escalator and missed or bobbled or something and twisted my knee. That was two weeks ago, and I've been limping ever since, although I must admit, feeling much improved the last few days.

As you can imagine, my brain sort of exploded a little at the lack of activity the first several days, but I've been finding ways around it that don't aggravate the injury or cause pain and I've been able now to get back to the gym for some upper body weights workouts, which feels great.
Although I would really like to get back to heavy lifting, it appears that it's going to be a while, so I'm playing the waiting game now while I let my sad little left knee recuperate. (I refuse to call it my bad knee - I have a sad knee and a happy knee - disgustingly perky, I know.) At any rate, I am constrained from doing knee bending at the moment, both doctor's orders and also frankly, just the thought of it makes me cringe. So squats and lunges are out.

I've been working on a pretty good substitute upper body program into which I'm incorporating some unweighted and prone or seated leg exercises. Quad sets: contract and hold the quads while prone; hamstring sets: seated upright, knee slightly bent, activate the hamstring by pressing the heel into the floor, hold. Straight leg raises, various varieties. Single leg balancing. Calf raises. The only weighted leg exercise I feel comfortable with just now are RDLs - oh I did some yesterday with a pretty light barbell and feeling that hamstring stretch and work felt great. The mighty deadlift! And I'm thinking that by the end of this recovery period, my upper body should be killer, even if my legs will have to catch up later.