The ACL(anterior crucial ligament) is one of the four ligaments in your knees. Your ACL is a very important part of your knee. It gives you stability and prevents your knee from giving in.
ACL tears are very common. The easiest sports to tear your ACL are Football, Soccer, Basketball, Lacrosse, and Skiing. There are many ways that you can prevent them.
Working out regularly is the best one. By working out you can strengthen your quad muscles and help be stronger preventing ACL tears. Seeing a PT is a good way to know what exercises you should be doing.
When you tear your ACL you will probably hear a loud popping sound which is your ACL ripping in half. Most times if you go get your knee checked out and then you will find that it is torn. After that you have to get surgery. I recommend wearing a brace until you have surgery.
During surgery, depending on your growth plates, using two small incisions on the knee they take a graft from the patella tendon or hamstring tendons, and then they drill two holes into both the tibia and femur. Using the holes they take the graft and attach a button or a screw, to one end and then on the other creating your new ACL.
After the surgery you have to take it easy. You have to learn to walk, run, and play your sport again. You will always remember how to play but you have to pass three tests to go back to your sport.
One is a Hamstring test where you have to have 100% both legs. The others are a jump and quad tests. There are around nine different types of jumps you have to do. The quad test you have to also be 90% or higher. Once you pass your test you are able to ease back into your sport starting with no contact until you have passed the quad test twice. If you do then you can start playing back to normal.
Usually you will have a brace that you will wear for around 2 years starting the day of your surgery. You will wear the brace for contact and playing in general. There is alway a possibility of doing it again but working to get stronger helps prevent it. It is a very long journey back to your sport but it is very much worth it.
