Maksim Chmerkovskiy isn't going to let his leg injury stop him from achieving his Dancing with the Stars goal.
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Although Maksim, 37, just underwent surgery for a calf injury he suffered last week in rehearsal, Good Morning America showed a behind-the-scenes video clip on Friday in which the pro dancer said he and partner Heather Morris can still win Season 24 of Dancing with the Stars.
"I still feel like we have a chance," Maksim told the Glee star and her temporary fill-in partner Alan Bersten from the DWTS Troupe via Skype in the video. "You deserve it and I want to give you 150 percent effort and be physically active as I was at my best when nothing hurt. I want to come back and win."
Dancing with the Stars cameras were rolling last week when the incident occurred. While practicing choreography with the 30-year-old blonde beauty, Maksim was mid-spin when he suddenly cried out in pain, hopped around on one foot, and then bent over to hold his injured right leg.
"It's my calf muscle," Maksim yelled out as Heather appeared very worried. "F-ck. It just felt like something hit it."
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Maksim was forced to watch Heather and Alan dance from the sidelines in the Dancing with the Stars ballroom on Monday night, which marked Week 2 of the competition.
Heather and Alan managed to finish in third place on the judges' leaderboard, which was where she and Maksim landed on the leaderboard during the show's premiere as well.
After Heather's latest performance, Maksim wrote on Instagram he was "so proud" of his partner and promises to "work harder than ever" to get his "ass back to the ballroom as soon as humanly possible." He added at the time, "I promise this isn't the last you've seen of me."
Maksim then underwent surgery for his leg. The longtime DWTS pro and new dad shared a couple of photos of himself in a Ashtabula, OH, hospital on Wednesday, March 29.
"Please rest assured that I'm taking this thing very seriously and, although I don't have a concrete return date, I'll give it my all!" Maksim wrote alongside one picture of him wearing a hospital gown, before he added another image of himself in a hospital bed with the caption, "Gettin' un-broken... #seedsorthopaedics."
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Maksim also explained the procedure to Heather and Alan during their Skype session.
"They extracted some of my bone marrow stem cells [and] made a concentrate out of that. [They] mixed it with my plasma-rich protein, if that means anything to anybody out there. They injected it back into my calf," Maksim said.
"What happens is, when you have these sort of tears, this kind of liquid, what it does is fills in little cracks and anything that is torn. So it starts to regenerate tissue and send all these signals to it and start the healing from the inside."
Many could argue Maksim and Heather entered the competition with a leg up on their competitors because she previously competed on So You Think You Can Dance and served as one of Beyonce's backup dancers on tour.
"To say that we just have this massive advantage, I think so, but I don't think we're the only ones that could pull off beautiful, beautiful numbers," Maksim told E! News earlier this month. "I'm ready for us to be scrutinized a little different and judged a little different and rightfully so, we'll do our best."
About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski