Bill's PT Routine

My Physical Therapy is coming along nicely. A couple of people ask what I do at PT, so here's the list... I go through the following items in about an hour and 10 minutes.


Stretching

• Calf stretches; straight leg - 5 reps, 30 seconds each
  
• Calf stretches; bent leg - 5 reps, 30 seconds each

Ankle Non-Weight Bearing Excercies

• Dorsiflexion/Plantar Flexion - move ankle/foot toward you and away from you (up and down) - 20 reps
• Inversion / Eversion - move ankle/floot side-to-side - 20 reps
• Rotation - 20 reps clockwise / 20 reps counter-clock wise
• The same exercises as above but on the baps board (pic below)
  
• Toe lifts - 20 reps
• Heel pumps - 20 reps

This is the BAPS board... my exercises involve making sure that the ends of the board touch the ground. Each week, they put a bigger ball on the bottom, which requires that my ankle be required to do more work to have the ends touch. Note: I don't stand up on this thing yet. My exercises are sitting down.


Weight Bearing Exercises

• Weight shifts - 10 reps, 10 seconds each
  
• Bike - 10 minutes on level 4 (feels like bicycling on air, though)
• Wall/Back Thrusts - 10 reps; 2 times
• Stair stretch - put foot on stair and lean forward - 3 reps; 30 seconds each
• Shuttle - 10 reps; 3 times

Message and Cooling

• I get about a 15 minute massage of my foot and ankle to push the blood out (it helps reduce the swelling). Since I started phyiscal therapy, my foot size went down 2.5 centimeters - this is almost half of my swelling!
  
• Finally... I spend 10 minutes in the cryo cuff. It's a boot that they pump cold water into. Apparently, I'm only one of two people in the place that actually like it.