hongkongexpat’s AchillesBlog

Hi all,

Rehab seems to be progressing OK. When I last posted at the Week 14 mark, I was hitting the gym around 5-6 days a week, working the legs 1-2 hours at a time. But every time I finished up at the gym I felt that my achilles was really fatigued - it would hurt and I would limp more. The PT had said that the exercises he told me to do were static so I should even be able to do them a couple times a day. I don’t have time to do them multiple times a day but it suggested that doing them everyday shouldn’t be a problem. I asked him if pain normally came with fatigue, and he said it is not unusual. But I got worried that I have been overworking it so decided to go work on my achilles and legs only on alternating days. I’m glad I backed off the intensity because the pain subsided and I was able to do my exercises more effectively. The lesson learned is that I needed to listen to my own body - my PT and OS doesn’t know how I feel. There have been other instances where my PT has told me to try something and I just said my achilles isn’t just up to it so we had to take smaller steps.

Over the past 3 weeks, the exercises the PT has had me do has progressed to incorporate some single-leg balancing work that involves balancing on the front of my foot only (heel hanging off the edge of a step) and some basic dynamic stuff such as lunges onto a bosu ball with round side up and striking with the ball of my foot. My double-leg heel raises have been good so I’ve progressed to try some single-leg raises (2 legs up and 1 leg down, and also the reverse). I’ve been doing these while holding onto a fixed bar with my hands to take  some weight off my achilles, but am almost at the point when I can do them without holding onto anything. I’m now also starting to do some leg presses with heels up (balls of feet only), and some lightly loaded knee drives on the TRX, which is the first type of explosive movement I’ve done since ATR.

My injured foot is still a bit swollen around the ankle but it seems to be coming down slowly. In terms of movement, from the week 15 mark I was able to descend big steps with no trouble, and my walking pace and gait is pretty normal. Although last week I had a limp, which I think was due to my achilles being worked when I went boating - my achilles would’ve been activated more due to the rocking of the boat and I had to step between boats too, which was a bit of a challenge.

As for my ROM, my active dorsiflexion is as good as that of my good foot but my passive dorsiflexion is still not as good (e.g. when I squat down with flat feet the knee on the injured leg cannot go down as far). In the last 7 weeks or so I haven’t been as aggressive as I had been during the preceding 4 weeks. I know there’s been a lot of caution about elongation of the tendon or "healing long", but I’m wondering if there risk of healing short and losing flexibility? And when can I expect to get my flexibility back? Is everyone else still incorporating stretching in their routines?

Happy healing everyone!

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