Serious Sports Injuries: ACL tear

Among the most common sports injuries are ACL tears. So common, I bet your know at least one person who has torn their ACL in sports. Personally, I know someone who has torn it three times. With this kind of tear, there are so many questions. What motions/actions can you do to tear it? Does this always need surgery?, etc. I think it is important to inform people on this very frequent sports injury.

The technical name for an ACL tear is an anterior cruciate ligament tear, ACL for short. As knee injuries go, it is one of the most frequent. Your ACL is an important part of your knee joint, stabilizing it and restraining it from hyper-extending.  Playing sports such as football, basketball, or soccer makes it more likely that your will have this injury, since these sports are considered "high demand". Notable professional athletes that have torn their ACL play the three sports mentioned above. Derrick Rose, Jason Smith, Kendrick Perkins, and Rajon Rondo all play basketball and have torn their ACLs. Similarly, Tom Brady, Robert Griffin III,  Darrell Revis, and Wes Welker have all torn their ACLs, and they play football. But, this injury is so common that not just professional athletes can get it, that is how truly common and easy to have this injury is. On my soccer team alone, three people have torn their ACL.

According to orthoinfo.aaos.org, some causes of this tear are, "changing direction rapidly, stopping suddenly, slowing down while running, landing from a jump incorrectly, and direct contact or collision. Michaela Sullivan recalls what she was doing when she tore her ACL during soccer practice, "I was chipping the ball across the field and my body was at an awkward angle,". "80% of sports-related ACL tears are non contact injuries," says someone at orthopedics.about.com. "Most often, they occur from jumping and landing wrong or turning,". Michaela's injury was non contact. She also describes the pain she felt when the tear happened, "When I first tore it, it was a real severe pain really quick and I fell down in the middle of practice,".

Most of the time ACL tears require surgery. Surgery is required if you are regularly doing activities that require a functioning ACL. So, for sports purposes, you would need surgery. Michaela also talks about her recovery process, "I had to go to physical therapy before surgery to build up my muscles, and after surgery it was really hard to get back to where I was, it took me about eight months to get back to playing soccer,". Even now, Michaela says that she still isn't where she was before her injury. After surgery, physical therapy, or pt is required to get motion and stability back. Even so, your mobility probably won't ever be the way it was.

Hopefully, if you didn't know about ACL tears in sports, you do now. If you already knew about them, hopefully you know more than you did before. This injury is very serious, and can set you back in your sport, no matter what sport that may be. You don't have to play soccer or football or basketball to aquire this injury. Be careful and stretch often.