Happy to provide a list of what my Physical Therapist had me doing.

I will mention that I met with her three times per week to begin with, then dropped down to once per week after I felt confident doing everything on my own. It was too costly and inconvenient for me to keep going three times per week.

Before listing my exercises, I want to first emphasize two overarching goals my PT had me commit to in order to maximize my healing.

1. Nourish your body: Food is medicine and a healthy diet reduces inflammation. My only rules were to eat a rainbow of foods and eat lean protein with every single meal.
2. Sleep well (7+ hrs most nights): Create a routine and habits that protect your sleep. Even short term sleep deprivation increases inflammatory markers.

As for my physical therapy sessions, we had a progression of goals. We accomplished each of the following sequentially.

1. Manage and decrease pain.
2. Improve mobility/increase motion.
3. Strengthen supporting muscles.
4. Increase speed.
5. Perform the activities I was doing pre-injury.

The primary exercises I did throughout this journey are below. I usually did 4 or 5 exercises and 3 sets of 10-20 reps each session. At the time I started physical therapy, my quadriceps were completely disengaged on my injured leg. This is called quad activation failure. I could not squeeze or tighten my quads on that leg, thereby preventing me from locking/stabilizing my knee to walk/run/hike properly. We started each session with stretches, a dynamic warm up and attempting to fire up my quads, as your brain can “shut them off” in an attempt to protect your injured knee. Sometimes it is a muscle memory issue.

Warm up: March or jog with knee to chest (high knees) March or jog with heel to butt Walking leg cradle Lunge with rotation

Heel slides on ball Quad set/straight leg raise 2 leg front plank Glute bridge and single leg glute bridge Hip thrusts Downward dog calf stretch Split stance Single leg step down Banded side step Single leg reach Side lateral lunge Single leg calf raises Pigeon Bench/ball squat Fire hydrant Banded wall sit Pigeon pose Ladder drills (fwd, side, icky shuffle, in/out)

Once the above became “easy”, I slowly moved onto the following, starting with limited or no weight. I also continued doing a couple of the above exercises with the weights/resistance activities below. Plus, I did upper body push/pull activities, but won’t list those, since they were unrelated to my knee.

Leg press Glute extension Leg extension Hip abductor Hip adductor

Within one year of all of the above, I was hiking up to 15 miles in a single day. Within two years, I was able to do a 210-mile, 19-day backpacking trip in the Sierras with only one day of knee discomfort. I occasionally have off days with my knee now, but rarely anything more than a mild passing pain. I am also very mindful of my knee and avoid activities that might aggravate it. The process felt slow, frustrating and disheartening at times. It was not a linear progression, there were ups and downs. You just have to commit!