Whether you have had an Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction or have lived with a torn ACL for many years or have heard so much about it that you want to avoid ending up with one, there are a number of ways that you can tear your ACL.
Having torn the Anterior Cruciate Ligament on both my knees and been through two complete ACL Reconstructions, I'm going to share a a bit about the most common ways that you can tear your Anterior Cruciate Ligament from personal experience and from hearing the experiences of others.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Monday, July 18, 2011
Knee Cap Issues after ACL Surgery
It may be surprising to know that many people actually experience issues with their knee cap after an ACL reconstruction and this interferes with the overall motion in your knee joint as well as causing pain and making disturbing cracking noises.
After ACL Surgery, the knee cap usually pulls towards the outside of the knee due to the ITB (ie. the large quad muscle on the outside of your upper leg) being too tight.
You may find that your Physio needs to give some attention to your knee cap (loosening, massaging) to help it “move in its groove” properly as well as massage of the ITB quad muscles. You will also find it helpful to tape the knee cap in a certain way that helps to pull the knee cap back across into it's proper place. I found taping the knee cap incredibly helpful after both ACL reconstructions. Here's some further detail on the knee cap issue if you want to have a read:
The other important area in addressing this problem is to strengthen the quad muscles. For most people, this will mean strengthening the VMO which is the quad muscle on the inside of your leg. In fact, this is one of the muscles that receives the most focus during your recovery after ACL surgery. There are specific exercises which target this muscle which any complete physio program or ACL recovery guide will spell out for you.
Anyone else got knee cap experiences to share?
Ben
After ACL Surgery, the knee cap usually pulls towards the outside of the knee due to the ITB (ie. the large quad muscle on the outside of your upper leg) being too tight.
You may find that your Physio needs to give some attention to your knee cap (loosening, massaging) to help it “move in its groove” properly as well as massage of the ITB quad muscles. You will also find it helpful to tape the knee cap in a certain way that helps to pull the knee cap back across into it's proper place. I found taping the knee cap incredibly helpful after both ACL reconstructions. Here's some further detail on the knee cap issue if you want to have a read:
The other important area in addressing this problem is to strengthen the quad muscles. For most people, this will mean strengthening the VMO which is the quad muscle on the inside of your leg. In fact, this is one of the muscles that receives the most focus during your recovery after ACL surgery. There are specific exercises which target this muscle which any complete physio program or ACL recovery guide will spell out for you.
Anyone else got knee cap experiences to share?
Ben
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