Week 8, days 4 and 5

Yesterday, rocked the elliptical at the gym for 15 minutes at a lighter-to-medium intensity and felt good. Topped it off with a 15-minute bike ride of higher intensity (180+ bpm heart rates again) and that felt fine. Did my stretches.

I was a bit surprised that the knee felt fine all the way through my 2nd elliptical outing. This means that I must've "conditioned it" or "broke it in" with the 10-min elliptical Wednesday. So basically, you gotta work it to get any results.

However, at the end of last night, did a bunch of standing around and walking. When I woke up this morning, my tibia felt more painful than the painless level that it has been at before. Still, it's a fairly slight increase in pain, so I'm not worried.

I've been doing more stairs, mostly the ones at home (avoiding stairs at work still). Coming down stairs is more difficult, as one might expect. It's not very smooth, I kinda "drop" onto the step, and so I need to work on it. Coming up the stairs feels fine/OK.

Today, I did some evening PT in my work gym. I ramped up my elliptical for 20 minutes at a lower intensity (heart rate 130-150bpm). A pair of 6lbs ankle weights made for one heavy gym bag. Did stepups, heel raises, balancing and stretches. Knee felt fine!