We were put through our paces

This afternoon when I got to physio I put my leg on while the others in the group started their 10 minute warm up. With my leg on I started with my warm up but was now about 5 minutes behind the others. My warm up was on the bike again but as before kept slipping off on my operated side. It was also harder this week because I was on resistance 2 where as before I was on no resistance, as a result I didn’t cycle as far as last time. At least everyone else got a breather for 5 minutes while they waited for me to finish. It was the hardest physio session I think I have ever had. After the bike we did a circuit of three exercises for three minutes each. The first one was putting the good foot up on a step and back to the floor again, this involves a lot of balance work on the prosthesis and is a lot harder than it sounds. The next was doing a figure of eight around two cones which changes the pace and stride pattern on both legs. The last one was holding a weight in each hand and swinging your arms as you walks the length of the gym, turn around and go back again. As you can imagine you can’t do this exercise while walking with sticks so I found it quite difficult but managed it. We then moved on to another circuit of three exercises, the first was side stepping, only one step and then back again but it had to be a smooth movement in a constant rhythm. The second involved being inside the parallel bars holding on with only your finger tips, we then had to walk along the line in the middle of the floor one foot in front of the other. This had to be done with a good size pace an not heel to toe. The last of the exercises saw us stand on a deep, square, plastic covered foam cushion which was placed just inside the end of the parallel bars. There was a resistance band tied to one bar with the idea being you balance on the cushion, take hold of the band, then pull it up and across your body and then down again. You repeat this for half of the time and then swap hands for the remaining half. I found all this really demanding and after these circuits we were told to lay on the beds. Now normally you would jump at the chance but this being physio you know you are not going to get a rest. Being correct we then broke into stretches and core muscle work, which was anything but relaxing. After that it was tea break, I just have water as I get really dry in the gym, then time to take my leg off and come home. I was pretty knackered at the end of the session but it was all for my benefit and progress. The best news of all though was that my leg was not cutting into my groin, it didn’t feel like I was walking on a razor bland and I think we have just made a giant leap forward, at last!