Not sure if this thread belongs here or Get a Life but I’ll hoist it up on the flag pole and see if anyone salutes it.
In this country ACL injuries (ruptures/tears) seem to have become frightfully common. My brother and a friend of mine have torn each of theirs on the same leg twice. I know or have heard of around ten other guys between the ages of 17-25 who have had serious ACL injuries in the past couple of years.These guys vary in their body type and sport.
My mother who is a Doctor says that it has become a much more common in recent years. Was just wondering if we could get a discussion going about the increase (or not) of this kind of injury. Is it as common in other countries? What do we think is making it more common?
Some of the points that I have heard/thought of:
Lack of Core strength. a weaker core makes the tendons and ligaments more vulnerable to injury
Resistance Trianing, either done badly weakens the tendons & ligaments. or even when done correctly muscle fibre strengthens quicker than T&L fibre.
People today are generally unhealthier than we used to be. Increased sedentary lifestyle has left us weaker and less flexible than we should be and the only exercise that many do is 1-2 hours relatively intense activity leaves us more vulnerable to injury.
Would love to hear what you guys think. Also any stories you have of ACL injuries, how they happened etc.
[quote]Cathall L DW wrote:
Not sure if this thread belongs here or Get a Life but I’ll hoist it up on the flag pole and see if anyone salutes it.
In this country ACL injuries (ruptures/tears) seem to have become frightfully common. My brother and a friend of mine have torn each of theirs on the same leg twice. I know or have heard of around ten other guys between the ages of 17-25 who have had serious ACL injuries in the past couple of years.These guys vary in their body type and sport.
My mother who is a Doctor says that it has become a much more common in recent years. Was just wondering if we could get a discussion going about the increase (or not) of this kind of injury. Is it as common in other countries? What do we think is making it more common?
Some of the points that I have heard/thought of:
Lack of Core strength. a weaker core makes the tendons and ligaments more vulnerable to injury
Resistance Trianing, either done badly weakens the tendons & ligaments. or even when done correctly muscle fibre strengthens quicker than T&L fibre.
People today are generally unhealthier than we used to be. Increased sedentary lifestyle has left us weaker and less flexible than we should be and the only exercise that many do is 1-2 hours relatively intense activity leaves us more vulnerable to injury.
Would love to hear what you guys think. Also any stories you have of ACL injuries, how they happened etc.[/quote]
Weak glutes in the answer to everything, j/k. On a serious note, everyone I know who squats something heavy in good form, does not have anything ruptured in their knees, hips or back. Every one I know who have teared their ACL or whatnot are not strong.
I’m sorry, but every case is individual and situational.
There are non-contact and contact tears. A contact tear could have happened from un-expected force/pressure. Even if you squatted ATG and then underground and all the way to China, that would mean absolutely SHIT when someone puts their foot to the side of your knee while you have both feet planted.
OP The only statement I agree with is your last one, and only too a point.
The number 1 reason I see is specialization, 30 years ago kids played a million different sports and games. Now you’ll have a kid play nothing but basketball, other than that he’s just sitting all day. Combine that with strength training, where people concentrate on one area you have an overused muscle combine with underused muscles/tendons combine with high force and weak support, asking for an acl tear.
When you play football one season, baseball the next and mix in things here and there you get a wider range of development while resting certain overused muscles, and cross training multidemensional movements. Your body will instinctively be better prepared for something out of the ordinary.
[quote]Claudan wrote:
I’m sorry, but every case is individual and situational.[/quote]
This. My mom, who is a second degree black belt, tore hers last year completely on accident ( her ski got caught on the lift up and twisted her leg and tore the whole thing off)
weirdly enough I have noticed a lot of people in my area injuring their acls. I think you become more aware of things that have happened to you like this though. seemed like everywhere I went I saw people in full leg braces
[quote]Airtruth wrote:
OP The only statement I agree with is your last one, and only too a point.
The number 1 reason I see is specialization, 30 years ago kids played a million different sports and games. Now you’ll have a kid play nothing but basketball, other than that he’s just sitting all day. Combine that with strength training, where people concentrate on one area you have an overused muscle combine with underused muscles/tendons combine with high force and weak support, asking for an acl tear.
When you play football one season, baseball the next and mix in things here and there you get a wider range of development while resting certain overused muscles, and cross training multidemensional movements. Your body will instinctively be better prepared for something out of the ordinary.
[/quote]
That’s your practical answer right there. Volume is the number one risk factor in repetitive stress injuries, be it a muscle strain or a ligament sprain. Even acute Non-contact ACL injuries often result from imbalances in the lower extremities. With professional and NCAA athletes there is an offseason period and trained staff to correct and prevent these issues, and they still happen. For kids that jump from varsity to travel league year round, the chips are stacked against them.
i agree with full squats done right. done right involves laterally rotating the hips and shoving those knees out. this is (IMHO) especially true when you have long femurs and is (IMHO) the reason why FEMALE ATHLETES ARE ESPECIALLY PRONE TO KNEE INJURIES. they hit puberty (hips widen, femurs lengthen) and they need to be taught specifically how to control their new levers. puberty for women… really is a physical metamorphosis. many girls take to the couch about then, try and run their way back to a pre-adolescent (more ‘athletic’ or boyish form), or… injure their knees.
most people don’t have sufficient external rotation of the hips. their lateral rotators are fairly dormant. people are told to squat with their feet shoulder width (or just outside) - but here is a heads up: guys have relatively broad shoulders and narrow hips whereas women tend to be the other way around and the stance width is of course about the femur rotation more than anything… so… take a too narrow stance, tell them their knees aren’t allowed to come in front of their toes (or that their knees need to point straight ahead and not be shoved out hard as they fucking can to the sides) and you get medial cave and SNAP. or at the very least you get wobbly knees. most girls can’t jump, either. I think the reason is the same…
the answer: ballet. turn out. from the hip. knees out. we are capable… more than we think possible. (of course we don’t have to do it quite that much).
this is my story anyway, and i’m sticking to it. nobody listens to me… if i could be bothered being treated like a mentally retarded 18 year old for… oh… 7 years of my life… this is the PhD thesis (and initial training career move) I would do.
teaching adolescent females how to move in their new bodies. pretty cost effective way in investing in medals, too, seems to me…
its because of all the sitting on our asses that we do. college athletes… need to maintain their GPA… which means occasionally… they are sitting on their asses for hours in lecture theaters etc.
at least let the athletes sit on the floor up the front lolz.
[quote]alexus wrote:
i agree with full squats done right. done right involves laterally rotating the hips and shoving those knees out. this is (IMHO) especially true when you have long femurs and is (IMHO) the reason why FEMALE ATHLETES ARE ESPECIALLY PRONE TO KNEE INJURIES. they hit puberty (hips widen, femurs lengthen) and they need to be taught specifically how to control their new levers. puberty for women… really is a physical metamorphosis. many girls take to the couch about then, try and run their way back to a pre-adolescent (more ‘athletic’ or boyish form), or… injure their knees.
most people don’t have sufficient external rotation of the hips. their lateral rotators are fairly dormant. people are told to squat with their feet shoulder width (or just outside) - but here is a heads up: guys have relatively broad shoulders and narrow hips whereas women tend to be the other way around and the stance width is of course about the femur rotation more than anything… so… take a too narrow stance, tell them their knees aren’t allowed to come in front of their toes (or that their knees need to point straight ahead and not be shoved out hard as they fucking can to the sides) and you get medial cave and SNAP. or at the very least you get wobbly knees. most girls can’t jump, either. I think the reason is the same…
the answer: ballet. turn out. from the hip. knees out. we are capable… more than we think possible. (of course we don’t have to do it quite that much).
this is my story anyway, and i’m sticking to it. nobody listens to me… if i could be bothered being treated like a mentally retarded 18 year old for… oh… 7 years of my life… this is the PhD thesis (and initial training career move) I would do.
teaching adolescent females how to move in their new bodies. pretty cost effective way in investing in medals, too, seems to me…
[/quote]
I’m just recently starting to become mindful about ‘pushing the knees out’ and I gotta say I’m starting to see it pop up everywhere. I always wondered what the deal was with my quads being so underdeveloped in comparison to my hamstrings.
(Dunno what the forum peeps think about Poliquin but I think he gives pretty good information)
I believe it is an imbalance caused by partial range of motion and consequential imbalances. [/quote]
Lots of good thoughts hear and as others have mentioned probably not just one thing. I think the poor range of motion, lack of hip/ankle mobility are big drivers in preventing the knee from moving in the way intended. As mentioned all the sitting we do in developed countries IMO plays a big role in the mobility issues.