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Hi there

Sorry to hear about your ACL. I see 4 or 5 of these daily in clinic right now, so can imagine your pain. Your first two weeks post surgery will be tough – it’s couch time, crutches and icing unfortunately, but after this (and with clearance from your surgeon) you will likely be able to start some easy spinning on the bike. Some of this will depend on whether you have a meniscal repair and the type of ACL graft used. Once cleared to bike though, this will be a good option for maintaining some fitness. You would be advised to keep the resistance low and work up to a high cadence to limit stress on the knee as it heals – and also better to get the HR up. Other options would be swimming (once wounds are healed up) – feels good, low impact, promotes healing, and then treadmill walking as you say.

You will need to be steady on your feet with no significant pain or swelling afterwards if you use a treadmill, so you will have to go very easy at first. Alter G treadmill also effective if you can find one, and there are also underwater treadmills, would you believe! We typically allow our patients to run at 12 weeks, again dependent on other patient specifics. I like the idea of the ski erg.

Hope that helps. I’d say most of our patients feel almost 100% by 6 months, though we don’t clear them for high risk sports until 12 months post op.

Your PT and surgeon can provide more tailored advice of course. Good luck!