Thorn meniscus

[blkblt]

Cathe (or fellow Cathletes with medical knowledge)

I have been diagnosed with a thorn meniscus with cysts in my left knee. I am waiting to see the orthopedist.
I have been told to limit any lunges or squats until the inflammation is reduced. What kind of lower body exercises can I do? I am a subscriber of Cathe on Demand so I can do my own workouts with the Blender, taking appropriate exercises from various workouts.
Also what types of cardio can I do? I know that for now anything high impact is out of the question. Same probably with HIIT. Unfortunately some of the lower impact cardio (LIS-AB, LIS-AT) have a lot of squats done rather fast. I just don't want to stop everything. I was in the middle of the S&S and LIS rotation and some workouts make my knee hurt.
I love your workouts and canot see myself on ANY machine for a few months.
Thanks in advance for your advice.

 

[Jane Power-Grimm]

Would Cathe's spin bike and/or barre workouts work for you?

 

[karategirl]

When I tore my right ACL a couple years ago, my orthopedist had a basic rule of thumb for my recovery: if an activity could cause significant pain, then I shouldn't be doing it yet. I know it's not what you want to hear, but if most lower body exercises are causing significant pain, it might be best to give your poor knee a rest until you see the orthopedist. He or she will be able to give you excellent guidelines for how to work out safely.

In the meantime, you could focus on upper body and core. For cardio, do the punching segments on Cathe's kick box and MMA dvds, and either march/walk in place for the lower body segments, or skip lower body altogether. You could also do Cathe's bonus heavy bag workouts. Continue your upper body strength training, core work, and maybe add some Pilates. Unfortunately, injuries like this demand a lot of patience and creativity on our part as fitness enthusiasts! Wishing you the best with your recovery.

 

[blkblt]

Thank you ladies for your advice. I also posted with the Cathlete group on Facebook and got quite a few responses. I still haven't seen the orthopedist yet but from all the advice I am concentrating on mostly barre, chair, ball and floor work. As for cardio I will take long walks (my triathlete husband is also in recovery for a torn tendon in his foot), and I might try the boxing sections...haven't thought about it. It's so frustrating, but if I'm not patient it will just take longer to recover or I'll fall even further behind...that's exactly what happened to my DH.