The 21-Year Old and Her Tear

Because my right leg was in a straight brace for 2 days after my injury, it was very difficult to regain my range of motion.  Bending hurt a lot.  Draining my knee helped to increase my degree of flexion but I was nowhere close to how much I could actually bend before the injury.

I didn’t know how far I should have been able to bend since the doctor simply said to “continue bending as far as you can, but to stop when the pain was unbearable.”  I am a very ambitious person; I was determined to get back my range of motion.  I had no idea if it was a good idea but what I did worked for me:

Kneeling

Every night when I iced my knee for 2 hours in 20-minute intervals, I would kneel and “sit” on my knee so I could bend my leg more.  My goal was to reach a degree of bending that would allow for me to sit like the woman in the picture on the left.  My goal each night was to increase my ability to bend by a few degrees.  I wasn’t able to reach this position until 2.5 – 3 weeks after my injury.

Heel slides

For 20 minutes, I iced and then for the next 20 minutes, I kneeled.  Iced, kneeled, iced, kneeled.  I have no idea if this was an appropriate thing to do but I was stubborn.  In addition to my kneeling exercises, I did heel slides using a towel to aid me.