Very recently, I started to see my recovery as enjoyably analogous to the yearly, etc. seasons of riding. Generally, in the spring around these parts, you start out without much fitness. You start getting rides in, adding miles and intensity as intelligently (since you are just sooooo happy to finally be out of the ice dark house) as you can. You do more miles/hours/hill repeats/watts/space shuttle launches. Then, at some point, you can do that hill with less perceived exertion and or a lower heart rate/keeping the lease on your breakfast. You pal, are getting fit for the rain-soaked gravel road climb ahead.
The doorknob of the exercise room tells a story about this PT/training analogue:
In the beginning of this rehabilitation trip, exercises were done without resistance. As flexibility and strength progressed, resistance was added with a latex band. Each color is a different (increasing) resistance, like so: yellow, red, green, blue, and so on. Last week, having progressed through to 20 reps X (all sorts of exercises) with a green band, I graduated to blue. I remember, when they told me about the range, when blue seemed an impossible invention, a place I could never hope to climb to.
At outpaitient PT, things have been advancing fast. It defies belief. When I got home from the hospital, I could bend my broken leg at the knee with help and that was my entire list of talents. There was a grocery list of that which I could not do. Over time, with PT, I've progressed from that to being able to do an ingenious (diabolical?) range and number of exercises, many of them with a six pound weight strapped to my leg.
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