Anyone had an ACL knee injury??

[mintmate]

Hi there!

I just joined today :grin: and wonder if there are any others out there in a similar situation!

I tore my anterior cruciate ligament (acl) at netball May 2009 ( first game of the season by the way and in the first five minutes!!! :cry: )

I managed to build up the strength in my leg/knee before my operation (August 19 2009) and had a great operation yay!

But now im on the long slow road to recovery (February 2010 I will be able to return to sport!!) Im nearly 5 weeks post op, in physio twice weekly and gyming it 4-5 times a week.

I have a rehabilitation program but cant run until November so im just cycling and doing all my usual upper and lower body weights

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what helped them or know of anyway I can help myself recover?? :grin:

Any comments appreciated!!!

[rose]

Hi and welcome.

I tore my ACL rollerblading and also damaged the meniscus in that knee too. Is there much muscle wastage above your knee? I made sure mine was strong pre-op but the amount of wastage post-op was still depressing! My vastus medalis looked like it had been dug out with a spoon

I was also unlucky they took two of my hamstring muscles to reconstruct my ACL because my patellar ligament was not big enough. Another thing to rehab etc.

Focus on rebuilding your stability, the supporting muscles etc. Things like single leg squats (to a comfortable angle, increasing as your strength does etc), static lunges, and step ups where you use the foot on the step to pull up (as opposed to pushing off with the foot on the ground). Use a low step height initially and increase progressively. Add weight when you're able to.

You could try leg curls and leg extensions (I did at first), but I preferred the compound bodyweight exercises which force you to stabilise yourself.

Good luck with rehab

[mintmate]

Thanks for your reply Rose

My quad is pretty much gone and I still have a bit of swelling on my knee ugh!

My good leg does 70kg single leg on the leg press and my bad one does 25kg!! But everytime I go to the gym it gets better (thankfully!)

And same on leg extension (49kg vs 21kg) and pretty much everything else I do. Thanks for the tips!

How was your overall fitness at the end? I have been a keen gym goer for a while and am at odds as to how to train now to stay in shape????

[rose]

Re fitness, I just had to stick with machines in the the gym for a while which damn near drove me mental (rower, cross-trainer, bike etc). Thinking back I just accepted my lot, did what I could cardio-wise and focussed more on weights. I'm not a swimming person but maybe try that when your leg is a bit stronger? Good cardio and low impact as well etc. I had to do aqua-jogging as part of my rehab. Man that felt sad aye :pfft:

Before my injury I'd been doing karate and running to work every day in addition to weights at the gym so it was a bit of a change, but I think it worked out for the better.

For ages I tried to make the wasted muscle come back but it never seemed to want to. One day I decided to give up isolation exercises to make it come back. Ages later I looked and noticed it'd magically appeared. I guess it just didn't like being paid special attention :roll:

Oh and um those little rebounder tramps you see at gyms? They're good for bouncing on one legged. Little bit of cardio (!) and it's actually really hard bouncing on one (weak) leg. Give it a go if you see one

[Jonny]

Hi,

I snapped my ACL about 9 years ago in a horse riding accident and also tore the cartilage. Pre op the physio had me doing leg extensions and curls to try to rebuild the quad that deteriorated really quickly, to a point where I could still run with my knee strapped.

After the operation I was back at phsio fairly quickly and then slowly worked at the gym once again mainly extensions a curls initially to build the qual, wasnt able to get to squats for quite some time. Still have a dend in my quad, where they tool the ligament from and no matter how hard I try cant seem to get rid of it. The knee swelling took a while to totally go too, but apparently thats normal.

The reconstruted knee actually feels better than the other knee now

Good luck with your recovery.