Are ACL Injuries Preventable

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Are ACL Injuries Preventable? 

The knee is one of the most complex joints that we possess.  It is designed to flex and extend and is really important in almost all tasks of daily living and any physical activity or sport.

Just think how hard it would be to kneel down if your knee would not bend more than 90 degrees in flexion?
Just think about how hard it would be to run fast, if your knee lost 10 degrees of extension?
The major ligaments of the knee are the Anterior Cruciate, Posterior Cruciate, Medial Collateral and Lateral Collateral. These ligaments, in conjunction with muscles surrounding the knee, provide stability at the joint to stop shifting of the bones of the thigh and lower leg in alternate directions away from each other especially.

The ligament that is focused heavily upon in the media and research is the Anterior Cruciate Ligament.  This ligament is responsible for preventing the femur from moving forwards during weight bearing and stopping rotation of the knee joint in general.

Injuries to the ACL can be comprised into a few basic categories:
  1. Contact or Collision Force injures: This is just what it sounds like.  When someone applies a rapid and often uncontrolled force to the knee joint or just above or below the knee joint often, the ACL is compromised.  Collision sports such as Rugby League and Union, AFL and Soccer are responsible for numerous collision force ACL injuries.
  2. Non-Contact ACL injuries: These are in our opinion way too common these days.  This happens when an athlete is landing, decelerating or just running when for some reason, the landing or deceleration does not go as planned and the ACL ruptures or is compromised in some way.

Women are around 50% more likely to suffer from an ACL injury than Men, so this article is SUPER important if you are an active girl or woman and you want to save yourself a lot of pain, time away from sport and a big medical bill.

So, what does an ACL injury feel like?

“It felt like my knee exploded from the inside.  The pain was unbearable at first and then it just went away.  I got up and walked off the field assisted, it was bizarre.  I thought I was fine and I was just being a sook until one of the medical staff tested my knee and the lower part of my leg seemed to just float around. Thats the I got the bad news, that I had probably ruptured my ACL and I needed to go and see a doctor (Surgeon) as soon as possible.  It cost me 3 months off work, about 10K in bills including travelling to treatment and a year away from playing sport.  It took ages to feel good again playing and it still bothers me.” Name withheld – a 20year old Rugby Union Player who ruptured their ACL just stopping to change direction, no contact.

ARE ACL INJURIES PREVENTABLE?

There is more and more research available now, that suggests that there is a very good chance of NOT sustaining an ACL injury by participating in REGULAR and CONSISTENT training patterns to improve the following key components:
  1. Neuromuscular Conditioning
  2. Warm Ups that graduate in intensity to match what you will train at.
  3. Recovery Time – between heavy training loads and playing.

The Neuromuscular Conditioning is something that is both interesting and important to know about. The Neuromuscular system is like the electrical system in a house.  You can have fancy lights, TV and all the rest of the gadgets to make a house cool, but without a good cabling system and good power supply, all these things do not seem that great. This is like what our NMS is for our body.  So, when we go to do something, there is a series of really complex communications that need to be undertaken at lightning speed by the brain and body to make sure that the right parts of the body do what is meant to happen to ensure the outcome that is desired is achieved.

So, for instance, when landing, Co-Contraction refers to the ability of the muscles in the lower limb to switch on as such and coordinate stability and force absorption as you land.  You want the timing of contraction to start JUST BEFORE the landing happens, NOT JUST AFTER!  If you land without good activation, then you go and activate a whole bunch of muscle, the likely outcome is that you will produce TOO MUCH force and that is one of the key arguments as to why the ACL is ruptured on landings that look “normal” as the timing of the muscle contractions, for some reason just do not work as well on that particular landing as on other landings.
That is why we MUST condition the Neuromuscular System just as much as the energy systems and the other systems we use in training to provide energy.

So, in my opinion ACL injuries are PREVENTABLE.  If you play a sport involving running, changing direction, jumping and landing then I really recommend you do something every day to keep conditioning your Neuromuscular System.

REMEMBER: If you stop, the conditioning stops, just like if you are fit, and you stop training, your fitness declines.  This will take 10mins of your training warm up to do.
Our next article will focus on 5 exercises you can include into your warm up to help prevent ACL injuries, so please keep your eyes out for this!

SPECIAL OFFER: 

Vector Health are coordinating an ACL Prevention/Rehab Program to be run over a 4 week interval – with 1 session per week as the commitment.  It is an education program where you get to go away with an 8 week program to incorporate into your warm up.
If you have read this article and you would like to take part in this program, we have a special offer for this program:
  1. 4 sessions – 60min session involving the following:
    1. Education
    2. Warm Up
    3. Specific Strength and Plyometric exercises to help prevent ACL injuries
  2. As part of the program you will receive:
    1. Mini-bands x 2
    2. Online access to specific ACL rehabilitation programs
    3. Coaching by a qualified Exercise Physiologist/Strength and Conditioning Coach
    4. Written Workbook with specific education activities and information that you can refer to after the course is finished.
Maximum of 16 people per group.  Special rates apply if a sports team or school group or a group of athletes wish to pay upfront as one payment.

TO REGISTER PLEASE CLICK HERE

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