My right knee has had a hard life.
It was always the one bloodied when I would crash a bicycle as a kid. It was hyper-extended in high school at a wrestling practice. At 20, I took all the skin off of it crashing a motorcycle. At 26, I blew my ACL and tore both menisci, leading to reconstructive surgery, a patella tendon graft, and 6 months of rehab. It’s honestly the only place on my body that bears any noticeable scars. It’s not exactly pretty any more, because of all of that.
But it’s still truckin’. I can call it my “bad knee” because I do have to pay a little more attention to it than my left, but it doesn’t give me any real trouble. What I have noticed, in the almost 3 years since my surgery, is that the more I work it, the harder I push it, the stronger and more stable it feels. If I get lazy, it gets sloppy, quick. Seems counter intuitive, but it’s working for me.