Strength Training from Physio Impacting Workouts

Fattack

Hey all

I dislocated my kneecap and despite physiotherapy, my leg never really regained strength. So I consulted another physio recently, mostly because I want to improve my mobility and be able to do more forms of exercise than I currently do - I want to be able to run, and do martial arts for example, without fear of it popping out again!

My new physio was fantastic, and gave me a lot of exercises to do, and she said I should do them like, every other day or so. I will have done them about 5 or 6 times before I see her next (which is a week Tuesday). Yesterday was the first day. I went to the gym at noon, did some cardio (which was more difficult than normal, as I was working the out of shape muscles in my new trainers - which help combat overpronation, and also concentrating on keeping my knee over my toes instead of letting it "slope" inwards). The strength exercises didn't hurt. The leg curls were easy enough, but the leg press was damn near impossible when I had to press with the bad leg. I stupidly misread the single leg press as 3 sets of 8, instead of 2, and last night I started to feel sore. Today I am in a BAD way - my glutes on the bad side are SO sore, and frankly, I'd overdone it. I couldn't go swimming today (I'm hobbling around like an old lady!), and I'm a bit sad because it's going to impact my weekly burn if I'm out of action the day (or at this rate, because I did overexert myself - two to three days) after I do the strength exercises, and I'm, quite frankly, terrifed - I've become accustomed to having 500-700 extra calories a day from exercise to eat, and I'm worried my appetite isn't going to wane with my burn.

What would you all advise? I'm hoping that, provided I'm "almost" better tomorrow, I can go to the gym, do the CORRECT number of reps, but I think I'm going to increase the number of calories I burn in cardio, because at this rate I'm not going to be able to go everyday if I need a days' recovery after each session! Is it supposed to hurt *this* much? I know the muscles were inactive, but geeeez!!! Has anybody here gone through physio strength training and can advise? I have suffered from muscle pain before (after my very first pilates session), so I know it'll get easier as the muscles rebuild stronger, but I really hate the idea of having to have a day off every other day until they're stronger! (Even if it is for my own good). I guess if I increase what I do in the cardio sessions that I can do, it'll at least help a bit (because I can save some for the days I can't exercise).