If you’re an athlete, the chances that you know someone who has torn their ACL in sports is very high. There are 100,000 to 200,000 ACL tears occurring every year! 70% of those tears are noncontact tears and occur when the athlete changes directions, slows down, or lands wrong from jumping.
There are preventative measures an athlete can take to help minimize their risk of an ACL tear that can keep an athlete from participating for up to a year or even more, and risk of re-rupture is high. So here are some keys to prevention:
- High Dynamic warm up: Getting your tissues warmed up and ready to respond to the demands of the game is crucial to help alleviate injuries. When tissues are cold or over stretched (from long duration end range holds), they are less able to respond appropriately to the quick demands of changing directions and extremes of ranges of motion. Performing dynamic exercises that take tissues and joints through the ranges of motions quickly and responsively helps them to be able to handle such demands during the performance.
- Strength: Hamstring and quad strengthening are crucial to helping maintain and support the integrity of the knee joint and ligaments. Making sure to put proper stress and tension under load as well as under fatigue will help to stabilize the joint during high dynamic activities.
- Proper movement patterning: A lot of time athletes have good strength, however their motor control and movement patterns place them more at risk for injury. Knee, ankle, and or hips collapsing inward all can lead to higher risk of stress and injury to the ACL. Seeing a movement specialist to assess whether you have any of these faulty patterns and learning corrective exercises to improve and correct these patterns can significantly reduce one’s risk of injury as well as improve performance.
If you’re interested in taking preventative measures to keep you in the game, we have great movement and strength specialists to help give you the tools to reduce your risk of injury and even improve overall performance! Call to set up an initial appointment today!
