Fitness Progress - 9th May 2013

Self Development Over Time

For the people who have followed my blog from the start, or at least the early stages, you may remember I mentioned that it would at some point turn towards a fitness based and physical orientated blog rather than dwindling on the story of my knee injury.

In the previous post I featured my fun run with Robbie Savage, something I obviously didn't get long to "train" for but fortunately I had been running 5K+ twice or three times a week for 2/3 weeks prior to the race, as well as my usual football training and 5-a-side games so my fitness wasn't too bad really.

I have also been hoping that my quad muscles would redevelop due to the distance I have been running.  As I have previously mentioned, it can take up to two years post-op and post-recovery for the quad muscle to redevelop to it's pre-injury condition, or at least to something alike.  I have recently photographed them in order to see for myself the development and improvement they have undergone in recent weeks and months.  As well as running around 3.25 miles on three occasions per week, I also complete a 45 minute intense spin class each Friday morning and along with various football "workouts", which aren't as calculated, I have found a steady development in my quad muscles, as you can see below.

My Quads - A Year On From Their Deterioration

I took a few photos to give different angles and lighting to see the full extent of their improvement.  To put it into perspective, I lost the majority of my quad muscles when I was injured due to not using them, nearly at all.  As I was on crutches for such a long period and no physical activity was possible, my leg muscles deteriorated and have taken a long time to redevelop, but from recent activities, I have noticed they are now even possibly stronger than their pre-injury state.

Above is the image I used on my blog post on January 29th 2013.  The top picture is the quad pictured from last nights photograph and as you can see their has been significant growth in my muscle, which I am very happy about as for a period of time, I did worry that I would be unable to regain full strength and power within my leg muscles.

Over the summer months and leading up to pre-season training, I intend on running my 3.25 mile route at least 3 times a week while steadily increasing the distance and reducing my time as well as increasing my speed per mile.  My most recent speed was 7 mins 33 seconds per mile, which has cut over 1 minute off my initial time.  When I first ran that route, I ran at 8 mins 55 seconds in late March at an average speed of 6.72 mph where as now I am running at 7.94 mph.

As for my general health, I have got my weight now down to 14 stone 2 lbs (89kg) and my resting heart rate is now at 50 bpm so the progress continues and hopefully will do throughout summer as I would ideally like to weigh in at around 13 stone (82kg) and tone up along the way!