How hard should I be working (when do I progress to the next level)?
At the start of each exercise session, a short warm up of 5 mins – treadmill, cycling, low weighted exercise should be performed (3-4 intensity on the scale below). Then, in order to gain muscle strength and control, you need to work muscles hard. Use the scale below to work out how hard you are working for each exercise.
Start your exercise program so that you are working pretty hard. This should equate to approximately 5/10 (on The Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE)) to familiarise yourself with the exercise.
Aim to complete most exercises so that by the end of each exercise you are working “really hard” – aim for 7-9/10 difficulty (exertion). For the strength exercises, you should be using a heavy weight so that you are physically unable to do any more repetitions of that exercise by the end.
If the exercise is too easy (i.e. <6/10) then your strength will not increase, and you should progress the exercise to make it more challenging.
The exceptions to this are when you are warming up and where there are scheduled weeks where your physiotherapist will reduce the intensity for the purpose of ‘periodisation’. The idea of periodisation of an exercise program is to have some lighter weeks that allows your body to adapt to the training. In your logbook later in this booklet, each session has a rating from the RPE scale that you should aim to meet.
How long does it take to see change? 
Muscle strength and size don’t increase overnight. It will take at least 4-6 weeks to start seeing an effect, but with persistent effort it will happen, and you will have long-term benefits.
Is muscle soreness/pain ok?
Because you are working the muscles to fatigue, you can expect some increase in soreness/pain in your muscles during and after the exercises, especially during/after the first couple of exercise sessions. Initially when you begin new exercises your muscle soreness might be quite high the next few days. This is normal and is a good sign that the muscle is growing. This muscle soreness will get less as you get stronger, but it is a good sign and shows you’ve exercised to a sufficient level.
Is knee pain or swelling ok?
If you haven’t exercised for a while, it is normal for some pain/swelling when you get started. To know you haven’t done too much, we use two simple rules:
- Pain/swelling should be no more than acceptable following an exercise session (i.e. Less than 5/10).
- The next day pain and discomfort should return to pre-exercise levels. If it doesn’t, speak to your physiotherapist about how to adjust the exercises to work for you.