ACL injury prevention

[mr.green]

I know theres a few threads offering tips to protect your knee, but i thought it was a good idea to throw some more ideas into the minds of other skiers( and i only found one involving plyometrics). Im constantly reminded how often the anterior cruciate ligament tears in our sport, having seen it happen to 3 people in the past 9 months and reading countless threads of people being taken out for the season. I personally am about to start a plyometrics program as well as some sprinting routines. Heres a website with a bunch of things you can do during the off season and during the season to strengthen your knee in the hopes of preventing a season ending injury.http://sportsmedicine.about.com/od/injuryprevention/a/ACL_prevention.htm

any other programs or routines that people use would be of great benefit to our communityTHANKS!

 

[C-Burg]

those work but sometimes you just can't avoid it like with my acl tear

 

[mr.green]

yeah but doing them would at least decrease the chance of an injury

 

[Z-Juice]

Bump, curious to hear from NSers who have hurt an ACL. Obviously the safest landing is the one you ride away from, but are knee injuries more prone landing backseat, with pressure forward on shins, etc.

Also curious if there are specific exercises anyone knows about to help with prevention.

 

[COskier]

Having done it twice, I would say that general leg strengthening is good, but I think the number one thing you can do is try not to ski (especially jump) when your legs are too tired. Never ski more than three days in a row and get the big stuff done in the morning, don't wait till it's two o clock to try shit.

I feel like both times I did it I also had a bit of stiffness in the knee joint/ligaments from shredding hard the last couple days.

 

[Peter.]

Bump, curious to hear from NSers who have hurt an ACL. Obviously the safest landing is the one you ride away from, but are knee injuries more prone landing backseat, with pressure forward on shins, etc.

Also curious if there are specific exercises anyone knows about to help with prevention.

backseat landings are bad for your knees, look at wallisch, he tore his on a back seat landing.

any sort of quad/hamstring/calf muscle exercises will go a long way in preventing ACL tears, but like someone else said, sometimes there is no way to stop it. even braces don't do that much besides prevent hyper extension.