Rehab for real in 2025

Jesus, the amount of times that I started a new post this year. I was hopeful, excited, depressed, worried, and now back to some good energy. I have a bout 5 different draft blog posts that I gave up on after experiencing so many stupid set backs this year. However, we are moving forward. Looking to this new training block for the month of March. I am 3 months in now to my 6 month plan.

Managing the commute, job responsibilites, and the likes we are making this plan work. The goal is still to compete in an aquabike sometime in the summer. Running? Well, that’s a different story right now. Maybe later on in the year, I am looking to just walk first. So in the meantime, all we can do is swim, swim, and swim.

This training block is more of a continuation from the January cycle. Feburary was short, it was my bday, there was some travel, and honestly had some bad weeks were my calf, heel, and knee were all too inflammed. I am taking PT more seriously now, scaling back any extra activitity, and following what I said in my 2025 goals, putting recovery first. So this cycle is going to be light, and heavily focused on swimming.

Training Schedule

Given life and this nagging heel, calf, knee injury the schedule needs to be flexible. Primarily with the main swimming portion. I am keeping that to three days a week due to the program I’ll be adhering too.

	Sun	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat
Rest			X		X
Swim		X		X		X
Lift	X		X		X	X
Rehab		X	X	X	X	X	X

Swimming Plan

The plan for this cycle is to follow the OSS couch to 5k plan – https://www.outdoorswimmingsociety.com/the-oss-couch-to-5k/. This one is interesting as it’s based more so on time, rather than distances. Additionally they do a great job of a progression and focusing on fitness and technique days throughout the 8 weeks.

I’ll be modifying the plan given the pain in the heel and the like primarily with the use of the pull buoy to limit any plantar flexion. Regarding the plan itself, they only call for three days so that works out perfect for during the week, and maybe given 1 or 2 extra easy swims on the weekend when the pool is open.

Rehab

So I finally found a decent rehab plan that progresses the person through 8 weeks. I’ll be performing this rehab along with some other movements that were given directly from my PT and adding them into each session. These sessions are meant to be quick, high volume, but should allow for recovery afterwards.

Additional exercises that I’ve found beneficial along with modalities like muscle scraping, acupuncture, and some massages

Mini Band Box Squat	Heel To Toe Walks	Marble Pickups	Balance board drop downs
Lateral Band walk stiff leg	Lateral Band walk knee bent	Wall squats heel touching wall	Calf Raises
Banded Hip Thrusts	Banded Ankle Pulls	Wall squat holds	VMO straight leg extensions

Flexor Hallicus Longus Tendonitis from Rehab program can be found here – https://upswinghealth.com/conditions/flexor-hallucis-longus-tendonitis/

Lifts

Finally on the lifts portion. This one I have gone back and forth with. I haven’t had much time to dedicate to lifting consistently between a couple different factors. I haven’t been able to do much with free weights, even upper body, due to the weight bearing movements. So machines have been the standard right now. It’s a simple setup.

Pick two body parts to focus on. There will be two main lifts for each, following a 10 x 10 pattern. Then followed by 4 x 10 of an accessory lift for each of the body parts.

The last cycle I modified the framework for GVT using a template by BB.com – https://shop.bodybuilding.com/blogs/training/german-volume-training-plans-the-10-sets-method

Moving forward – I’m going to update this section with the latest program. Ideally it’s going to still be machine based and pretty much bodybuilder type movements.

*** Update: 3/6
After doing some quick internet findings. Since I’m limited to machine movements to stay away from any unnecessary added weight on my ankle. Good old Muscle and Strength has a couple of good workouts for machines, I’ll likely be following just a 4 or 5 day split, with rehab primarily being the lower-part of the workout – https://www.muscleandstrength.com/workouts/4-day-upper-lower-planet-fitness-workout

Core

I’ll be continuing with the Copilot core program that Microsoft Copilot drew up for me at the beginning of January and modifying the exercises each week. The problem is just general fatigue given the the repitive ab movements.

See my previous post here – https://chrissandoli.net/2025/01/17/tri-swimming-workout-cycle-to-start-2025/2/

We’ll be going through weeks 9-12