Halo again ... Asotasi is set to return in the Charity Shield. Photo: Wolter Peeters

Souths skipper turned to guitars and motorbikes to beat tedium of rehab, writes Jamie Pandaram.

No, Roy Asotasi is not suffering a mid-life crisis - the new motorcycle and guitar are by-products of severe boredom while recovering from the most serious injury of his career.

But while these acquisitions have helped, the new knee has the potential to create another problem. Asotasi had a piece of his hamstring removed to fix the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee, thus exposing himself to the risk of hamstring injuries this season and beyond.

''They took out a bit of hamstring tendon as part of the surgery to put in the knee, so I had to strengthen the whole hamstring back up or it would have been a bit tight,'' Asotasi said. ''A lot of players, when they do take a hamstring tendon out, in the early stages they pull their hammies a lot because it is really thin. I have been pretty switched on in making sure I didn't do that, because it is easy to pull the hammy once you've had a knee reco. But they say once you've done all the strengthening work and built it back up, and let it heal well it should be fine.

''I've had to strengthen and lengthen it, and that was every day, for five months. It was a process of trying to get right again. And then you've obviously got your general fitness, which I am trying to get right again. Last week was the first time since the injury that I've trained on consecutive days. I've been doing speed work and hitting about 90 per cent and, so far, no problems. I haven't felt a twinge.''

Asotasi has not been able to run at full speed since damaging his knee early last August against Manly - and then hearing from the doctor the three letters most feared by athletes: ACL.

The South Sydney captain spent three months couch-ridden and, to maintain his sanity, has recently taken to blazing highways on his new Kawasaki 250R Ninja and learning guitar chords. ''I've been picking up the guitar, starting to learn how to play that, that is my new craze at the moment, and motorcycle riding,'' Asotasi said. ''It is [dangerous when you've just had a knee reconstruction]. I only picked it up a month ago, because after the surgery I couldn't do any riding. I've got to go for my licence, my Ps, in a month's time. Sometimes I ride to training and back. It is more of a hobby.''

He had to find one, because the never-ending healing exercises can become frustrating even for a fitness nut like Asotasi.

''When I did it against Manly in August, I pretty much had three months of doing nothing, that was real boring,'' he said. ''I had some rehab treatment and picked it up on November 2, that's when I had all the physio treatments.''

He was walking backwards on treadmills on an incline. ''It was more to strengthen the quads. All the muscles around the knee really just fade away, so you've got to strengthen them back up. I've been doing a lot of calf raises,'' he said, adding that his right leg now feels much stronger than his left.

''For probably three months I was limping, so I had to get that mentality to actually think about how to walk without actually limping. I had to snap out of it. I still had that mentality after three months to 'crip walk'. The physio said, 'You can start putting some pressure back on it', so I picked it up in December and started some light running.

''Two weeks before we started off-season training I had wrist surgery too. I was in a cast for six weeks and then in a sling - that was from an injury I got at the start of 2009. I just put up with it throughout the year and it got worse, started affecting my catching and passing.

''It was something I needed to get done, otherwise I would have gone into 2010 with a lot of head noise.''

As the strength in his knee improved, Asotasi took to single-leg box squats, hamstring curls, and ''a lot of balancing stuff, balancing on the balls, single-leg squats and single-leg jumps on a trampoline''.

''It was lucky the injury was at the end of the season, I was able to go on holidays and get away, go back home [to New Zealand] for Christmas and New Year, so that broke it up,'' he said. ''It would have been a lot harder if it was at the start of the season, watching the boys play.

''I think the biggest thing, when you have all that time off, is holidays. Me and my wife [Celeste] don't mind travelling.''

So much rests on Asotasi's meaty shoulders - not only as Rabbitohs captain but chief metre-eater, and now commander for young forward recruits Dave Taylor and Sam Burgess. Now he has returned to the training paddock and done his best to erase thoughts of the knee buckling again.

''At the start, it does play on your mind with the slow stuff, but with the training we do, for me personally I'm stuffed when we're doing fitness and it leaves my head,'' said Asotasi, who will make his return in the Charity Shield trial on February 27.

''Confidence plays a big part in it. You've got to be confident in whatever you're doing. So far for me it's been all right, I've been doing a lot of lateral movement, stuff that involves turning, twisting, tackling and getting up, and so far I'm pretty confident with it.''

With every step this season, Asotasi will trust the toil of seven months' rehabilitation and pray that it is enough.