10 Weeks After Surgery

I have finally started physical therapy and it's been a great experience so far. The main problem seems to be that my stabilizing muscles and glutes are weak, and I'm mainly using my quads to overcompensate. I shift my body far to the left to let my quads do their thing and that's part of what's causing my limp. The unfortunate thing about those stabilizing muscles is that they lose strength pretty fast and don't seem to regain that strength as quickly as they lose it.  I'm working on it, though, and the PT has me doing exercises I never would have come up with on my own. It's a different feeling from working out. It's not intense and I don't sweat very much. It's more of a quiet determination and I have to be very focused on keeping the right form and not cheating with my strong side.

Today I also learned that some of my back muscles have become weak. When the glutes contract, some back muscles on the opposite side contract along with them. Since I haven't been using my left glutes as much, the right side of my back is weak. This is something that I hadn't noticed, but it was very apparent when the PT put me face-first on an exercise ball and had me lift up my left leg and right arm at the same time. I had zero coordination. It was a weird feeling like I wasn't even in control of my own body. After a few reps I got a little better, and I'm looking forward to making progress at this exercise.

Meanwhile, I'm still riding. The rides have been mostly flat and short. I did 50 miles on Saturday, which was my longest ride since the surgery. I felt fine during the ride, but I was a little bit sore afterwards. On Sunday I did Geiger Grade, which was my first climb since the surgery. I didn't really know what to expect, so I took it slow. It felt so good to be climbing again.

I've gotten more comfortable on the bike from a mental standpoint. I know it sounds dumb, but before the accident I felt like I was "one" with the bike and completely in control. After the accident I was riding scared and felt uncomfortable. I'm not "one" with the bike again yet, but I feel more in control and I'm not worrying about crashing all the time. I do wonder if I'll ever go over 50mph again. Probably not, but isn't that an irrational fear? Would a crash at 45mph really have a better outcome than a crash at 50mph? Probably not.

I'll probably shoot for 60 miles this Saturday. As long as I'm not hurting too much I'm going to steadily increase the distance.