Overcoming an ACL Tear It’s game time, the whistle blows and the game begins. The first half passes and it’s 1-0 for the home team, it’s been pretty uneventful. Thankfully, there haven’t been any injuries, and the game has been clean. Eventually the second half starts winding down, the score now tied 1-1. Then comes a moment the players for both teams will never forget. An attacking player for the home team is dribbling at an away defender, the defender plants her foot and tries to turn with the attacking player when suddenly a loud pop is heard. The defender collapses and everyone immediately knows what has just happened. She has just become one of the 200,000 people who are forced to survive an ACL tear each year. It’s the event every athlete
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There are two main risk factors when it comes to ACL tears, what sports an individual plays, and the gender of the individual. There are certain sports where ACL tears are more common than in other sports. This is due to the certain movements of the knee required by each different sport. ACL tears are especially common in soccer, basketball, and football players. All of these sports require planting, cutting, straight-knee landings, pivoting, and sudden deceleration. For example, in football or soccer, a player plants his or her leg, slows down quickly, and cuts into a different direction. Depending on the direction of the cut, this sudden stop and twist of the knee can put too much stress on the ACL and cause it to tear (Slowik 2). While it is possible to tear an ACL in a non-contact sport, most ACL that are torn during sports occur while playing a contact sport. “One study showed that contact resulted in 93% of injuries in a ground of 226 patients while non-contact sport resulted in the remaining 7%” (Curran, Kum, Tanyu, Wyatt 1). The other risk factor for ACL tears is gender. For some reason women are more likely to tear their ACLs than men are. “Women are as much as eight times more at risk of an ACL injury than men playing the same sport” (Swift 2). There are a two theories as to why women are at a bigger risk for this type of injury. The first theory is that women use an improper technique when they’re jumping. “A study by the University of Michigan found that women tend to rely more on their quadriceps while men use their hamstrings” (Lister 1). The hamstrings and quadriceps are both used to stabilize the knee during a landing, but in women, the hamstrings are often much weaker in comparison to the quadriceps. This causes the knees of women to wobble in and out during a landing, thus causing ACL injuries (Swift 5). The other theory as to
There are two main risk factors when it comes to ACL tears, what sports an individual plays, and the gender of the individual. There are certain sports where ACL tears are more common than in other sports. This is due to the certain movements of the knee required by each different sport. ACL tears are especially common in soccer, basketball, and football players. All of these sports require planting, cutting, straight-knee landings, pivoting, and sudden deceleration. For example, in football or soccer, a player plants his or her leg, slows down quickly, and cuts into a different direction. Depending on the direction of the cut, this sudden stop and twist of the knee can put too much stress on the ACL and cause it to tear (Slowik 2). While it is possible to tear an ACL in a non-contact sport, most ACL that are torn during sports occur while playing a contact sport. “One study showed that contact resulted in 93% of injuries in a ground of 226 patients while non-contact sport resulted in the remaining 7%” (Curran, Kum, Tanyu, Wyatt 1). The other risk factor for ACL tears is gender. For some reason women are more likely to tear their ACLs than men are. “Women are as much as eight times more at risk of an ACL injury than men playing the same sport” (Swift 2). There are a two theories as to why women are at a bigger risk for this type of injury. The first theory is that women use an improper technique when they’re jumping. “A study by the University of Michigan found that women tend to rely more on their quadriceps while men use their hamstrings” (Lister 1). The hamstrings and quadriceps are both used to stabilize the knee during a landing, but in women, the hamstrings are often much weaker in comparison to the quadriceps. This causes the knees of women to wobble in and out during a landing, thus causing ACL injuries (Swift 5). The other theory as to