ACL: So What About the Post-Op Process?

[Guest Prosoft Admin]

First, let me reassure you that the majority of young athletes who have an ACL Reconstruction do recover well enough to resume sports. Some may choose not to. But physically speaking, it doesn't equate to a finished athletic career. There's even examples out there of athletes who've had surgery more than one time and returned, and even more than once on the same side and still returned. Depends on the athlete. Depends on their sport. Depends on their surgeon. Depends on their Physical Therapist.

Most surgeons will allow athletes recovering from an ACL Reconstruction to begin jogging somewhere around the 4-month mark, some at 3+ months and some not until 5 months. There's a number of factors that go into that decision but certainly we'd submit that an athlete's actual functional performance is a big key in that. Timing for biology of healing to occur is obviously critical and is something the surgeon is well aware of and has choices to make. But it certainly is the Physical Therapist's responsibility to collect and provide accurate and useful functional data on how an athlete's strength, balance, control, power, and acceleration-deceleration abilities are.

It's fine for lots of time to pass but time doesn't guarantee physical ability. It may result in healing, it may result in resolution of swelling and a lack of pain. But it doesn't guarantee those characteristics above that MUST be present to some minimally acceptable degree for the walk-jog program to go well and to prevent compensations or bad habit and cheating from happening, all of which can increase injury risk if they persist as an athlete goes back to sports.

HOW CAN PEAK PERFORMANCE HELP
Our focus at PEAK PERFORMANCE is on really understanding functional biomechanics of that young athlete recovering from an ACL Reconstruction. Recovery cannot be simply a protocol or a sheet of exercises. Each athlete must be looked at individually. Each must be tested not only at that injured knee but at the other leg, their hips, their feet and even their trunk. For some it might even mean understanding how their shoulders and arms are functioning, depending on the sport. We've got to get beyond the overly simplistic concept that it's a "healing knee surgery" and realize that all these joints function in an interconnected way, muscles cross more than just the knee, and dynamic balance and body control are critical, not just strength. 

Once an athlete undergoing ACL Reconstruction rehab gets out of the early healing phase we'll look into their biomechanics a bit deeper and help to identify potential risk factors and make sure they get addressed. Whether it's a need for foot orthotics, or an opposite ankle that's underperforming, or a foot on the same side that's weak, we want and need to be thorough. Every ACL is not the same. Every surgical return is not the same. Don't let yourself be just another knee.