I hope you heal up fine so that you are not impeded in the thing you like to do. I remember after my knee surgery going through similar physio and setting the brace to higher degrees. Your knee injury sounds more serious they the ACL patellar tendon reconstruction I had though. Since having my operation in December of 2006, I have to say that while it is not 100% it is better then before the surgery and has never stopped me from running, lifting or doing martial arts. I hope that you get similar results.

Rest and heal up buddy. Your positive attitude will help your recover big time. And remember don't rush things and always take YOUR advise; which hopefully won't be a hard pill to swallow.

Thats a good point bro', but dont worry, I always do my best to practice what I preach. I was lucky that my ligaments avoided damage, so its been a straight re-attachment of the patella tendon. Some point in the future I will need secondary surgery to remove the metal 'scaffolding' but thats far from imminent.
Already looked at lots of resources to establish probable considerations when fully healed, and am busy structuring future training taking it into consideration.
As for rehab, I am a pain machine, so a bit of blood n' tears training is something I am looking forward to

So what exactly was the surgery. For me my ACL was severed so they took a part of the knee cap and the shin with a strip of the Patellar Tendon as a replacement for the ACL; I have screws in my leg for life. Was yours the Patellar Tendon itself that was damaged? That had to be re-attached? That is wickedly bad. My fear is that since a strip was taken out of the middle, how strong can mine now be? But with yours totally coming off; wow!

Glad things are sounding better for you, Dave. Figures you'd be ahead of the curve. Overachiever.

My tendon snapped right at the point of insertion, so surgery involved re-positioning my patella (it has 'shot up' into my thigh somewhere), and stitching the tendon back together. However, because the tendon is under naturaly high tension, and would pull apart during healing under contraction of the quads, they drilled horizontaly through my patella, and also the head of my Tibia, and ran surgical wire through both in a figure 8 , effectively taking the strain off the tendon whilst it knits together.
At some point in the future, that wire may have to be removed, but that will be after rehab as I understand things.

All good fun. As for your tendon's potential weakness, to what I understand, it is a negligable issue, and patella tendon's snapping is a highly unusual injury, even in hard contact sports. The orthapedic specialist was amazed that mine had gone in such circumstances (a rock concert), and said that it was a problem he encountered infrequently in his work.

If you think about it, I have never heard of any athlete doing this - acl's? yes, torn quads? yes, dislocated knee cap? yes etc etc. But in 10 years sports therapy, I never once had to rehab anyone from this injury.

Lucky old me to get a rare one eh? Doh!

Will be looking over a new work out plan this weekend, with the help of Cord; appreciated. This is to help in many areas including taking into fact age; with me turning 41 this month.

Went home last night and had a great workout. It was 26C (79F) in my weight room so kept me lose and sweaty for the whole workout. Each exercise I either upped the repetitions or upped the weight and in some cases both. Last night's workout consisted of:

Barbell Bench Press - Chest
Barbell Military Press - Shoulders
Lying Closed Grip Bench Press; Machine - Triceps
Seated Underhand Pulldowns; Machine - Upper Back
Barbell Bent-Over Rows - Lower Back

Each 4 sets of 8 repetitions; though a few were less reps and a few were more. Friday will be biceps and legs.

Well, after 3 months of stage 1 rehab, I have been allowed to take off my leg brace, and can drive!!

My physio is 'amazed' at my improvement, and is happy for me to start using a stationary bike and the elipticle trainer as tools in stage 2, as well as referring me for hydrotherapy.

So yesterday I went to the pool, swam 12 lengths and did some hydro exercises for my leg (its an advantage knowing what they will give me, I can just get stuck in before the referal comes through ). Today I ache like hell!!! :0 Thats what 3 months out of action will do for you

No matter though, off to the gym in a bit to work on my leg stamina, and hit the upper body. Gonna be sweet!!!

crikey you looked like a spring chicken compared to the state i saw you in 6 or 7 weeks ago

Good for you Cord; one day at a time remember.

Feel like a rubber chicken now!!

10 mins on stationary bike. Resistance 7, 75rpm, 150bpm HR.

Seated Chest press 3 x 15,12,7 130lbs
Seated Row 3 x 15,11,8 170lbs
Seated Dumbell curl to arnold press 1 x 12 12kg dumbells

Pretty happy with today. Bike was painfull, but not 'negative' pain, and the leg held up well once it warmed up.

The upper body weights were very slow and controlled, really just relearning the movements, and not overdoing things.

Still feel wiped out, but its good to be back in the game