THE REVIEW,
and the extension battle.

Week two usually contains the first checkpoint: a wound review, often stitch or staple removal, and your first proper physio assessment. It's also the week the recovery stops being an event and becomes a routine — which is harder than it sounds.

The first review

Somewhere in this window most people see the clinic: the wound gets checked, dressings come down, and the physio takes a baseline — extension, flexion, swelling, quad activation. Published protocols like the Cambridge University Hospitals guidance treat this appointment as the calibration point: your exercises get progressed (or held) based on what the knee shows, not what the calendar says.

Bring questions written down. The appointment is fifteen minutes; the next one may be weeks away. That gap — not the appointment — is where the recovery actually happens.

Extension is still the headline

If week one introduced the straight-knee obsession, week two is where it either pays off or becomes the project. Published protocols keep full extension at the top of the list because a knee that settles short of straight changes how you walk, loads the graft differently, and is genuinely hard to win back later. Flexion (bend) matters too — protocols typically chase a progressive range through this phase — but extension is the one they refuse to trade away.

The practical shape of it: little and often beats one heroic session. Swelling that spikes after exercise and settles by morning is commonly described as acceptable load; swelling that ratchets up day over day is a signal to ease off and mention it to your physio.

Walking like a person again

As weight-bearing allows, the goal published resources describe is a normal walking pattern — heel-to-toe, equal step length, knee moving through its range — even if it's slow. A limp practised for six weeks becomes a habit that outlives the injury. Fewer, better steps.

Desk work, driving, and real life

The NHS guidance notes many people can return to desk-based work within a few weeks — with the leg elevated and the day punctuated by movement. Driving is its own question with its own criteria (which leg, manual or automatic, pain, control) — it's a decision to make with your clinician and insurer, not a milestone to assume.

The "am I behind?" trap

Week two is when people start comparing: the forum post who ditched crutches on day five, the highlight reel walking unaided at day ten. Protocols differ by design — graft choice and meniscus repairs legitimately produce different rules. "Behind" only means something relative to your protocol. If you're genuinely worried, that's a question for your physio, not for the comment section.

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Next: Week 3 — the motivation cliff · Previous: Week 1 — protect, elevate, straighten · Back to: the full ACL recovery timeline

Sources: NHS — Recovering from ACL surgery · Cambridge University Hospitals — ACL reconstruction rehabilitation