The ACL, or the Anterior Cruciate Ligament, is an important ligament that functions as a knee stabilizer. Unfortunately, ACL injuries are very common, with between 100,000 to 200,000 occurring each year. ACL injuries often lead to surgery, an end to a season, and up to a year spent in rehabilitation to safely return to sport.
At Physical Therapy Innovations, we are committed to helping you avoid the difficulties associated with ACL rehabilitation and recovery: our goal is to train you so you may avoid these injuries in the first place.
Why Do We Tear Our ACL?
ACL tears can occur in all ages, all sports, and at all levels of competition from the professional athlete to the weekend warrior.
Around 80% of ACL injuries occur without contact with another player. In fact, most ACL injuries occur when landing from jumping, changing directions, or decelerating. During these dynamic activities, when the knee turns inwards it causes a stress on the ACL and may result in sprains or tears of the ligament.
Improper knee alignment during performance can be caused by many different factors. Some factors which have been proposed to put an athlete at greater risk of an ACL are:
- A previous ACL reconstruction
- Increased weight and body mass index
- Ligament laxity
- Female athletes (more commonly torn than in males)
- Poor movement patterns
- Inadequate recovery from a previous injury
How Can We Help You Avoid This Injury?
The good news a well-constructed exercise-based injury reduction program can reduce the incidence of ACL injuries (1). Research shows that around 50-80% of ACL ruptures are preventable through supervised agility, strengthening and neuromuscular training. These prevention programs are beneficial whether you have had a previous ACL injury or not.
At PTI, we design a customized program for you. Every part of your training has a reason that is tailored to your specific needs. There is a purpose to every exercise and intervention including strength, corrective exercise, balance, and stabilization.
When training to improve performance and reduce the risk of injury, the body must be progressively overloaded in a calculated manner improve safety and effectiveness of your training.
Our ACL Injury Prevention Program Addresses:
Training in Proper Body Alignment
Keeping your body properly aligned during landing, directional changes, and deceleration is a key component in ACL injury prevention. We can train you to develop body awareness, strength, and balance to support your hips, knees, and ankles.
Strengthen Your Supporting Muscles
Our ACL injury prevention program includes development of strength in the muscles of your hips and thighs that will provide support to your knees and improve the stability of your joints.
Improve Your Balance
Balance is a frequently neglected facet of athletic performance. Many knee injuries as the result of an athlete being off-balance for a moment in play. We will assess, improve and challenge you balance requirements specific to your sport(s).
Plyometric Training
Our plyometric training is composed of exercises that specifically build power, strength, endurance, and speed. Plyometrics focus on proper jumping, landing, and hopping mechanics. Plyometric training includes repetitive jumping exercises with goals to strengthen the muscles around the knee, building explosive power, strength, endurance, and speed to lower the risk of ACL injury.
Agility Drills
Our agility skill exercises serve to develop and strengthen muscles and joints that are used in stop-and-start sports. Diagonal runs, backward running, and high-knee bounding runs are good examples that strength knee-supporting muscles for ACL injury prevention.
Stretch and Warm Up
A proper warm up and stretching will get blood circulating to your muscles and joints to prepare your body for game or practice. Our specialist will provide you with a customized stretching and warm up routine based on your specific needs.
Emphasize Quality of Movement
When engaged in any sport or exercise, the quality of movement is of maximum importance. Unsafe movements and joint alignment will be identified and corrected through cues, feedback, and practice. Our specialists will train you to absorb force through appropriate muscles therefore limiting the forces through the anterior cruciate ligament.
Cool Down
Cooling down is essential to any exercise regimen and should not be left out of your program. The muscles that have worked need to elongate to help prevent excessive muscle soreness. Drinking water as part of your cool down is also beneficial. Our specialists will discuss this portion of the program and provide you with a proper cool down regimen.
Rest/Recovery
Don’t let a busy schedule or overactive ambition lead you to compromise your technique or overwork your body. Rest is essential for gains to occur. Adequate sleep, rest days, and proper workouts routines make you a better athlete and reduce your risk of injury.
Recovery must be built into any ACL injury prevention program. While there are exercises and activities that can be done daily, certain activities require specific rest days and recovery techniques.
More Than An Exercise Routine
Our program is designed to educate athletes about prevention, not simply provide generic worksheet of exercises for you to figure out. Throughout our ACL Injury Prevention Program, we will provide tips and articles about important topics such as sleep hygiene, proper nutrition and hydration, and exercise prescription.
Most importantly, our experienced physical therapists will develop a holistic, customized program to help keep you in the game, stronger and safer than ever before so you can enjoy the sport(s) you love. We will work with you one-on-one to guide you through your ACL Injury Prevention Training!
Call today for more information or to schedule an appointment to get started!
- Arundale AJH, Bizzini M, Giordano A et al. Exercise-based knee and anterior cruciate ligament injury prevention clinical practice guidelines linked to the international classification of functioning, disability and health from the Academy of Orthopaedic Physical Therapy and the American Academy of Sports Physical Therapy. J Orthop Sports Phys Ther2018;48:A1-A42. https://doi.org/10.2519/jospt.2018.0303.
