Michael Hombsch, Physiotherapist
Pre Surgery ACL Mobility Exercises.
The anterior cruciate ligament provides stability to the knee joint and following injury a surgical repair is often required.
ACL TEAR EXERCISES BEFORE SURGERY
Exercises for anterior cruciate ligament injuries prior to surgery can be crucial in controlling swelling and inflammation, restoring strength and range and improving outcomes following the surgery.
If there is only a short period of time between injury and a surgical repair exercises and physiotherapy for Anterior Cruciate Injury will focus on restoring range of motion in the knee as full extension is needed prior to reconstruction.
EXERCISES TO AVOID WITH A TORN ACL
Exercises to avoid following an ACL injury are anything that may risk twisting or further instability in the knee and a sports physiotherapist will help guide this.
This is really an individual approach to what you should avoid, as ideally, your sports physiotherapist will keep you doing as much as possible, based on your particular circumstances.
This ACL injury exercise video will guide you through a few key exercises to get you started with a full transcript from the video below.
PRE SURGERY acl mobility exercise video
TRANSCRIPT OF ACL INJURY MOBILITY EXERCISE VIDEO
START TRANSCRIPT
"Hey guys today we're going to talk about some exercises that you can do to start increasing the range of motion in your knee following an ACL injury prior to surgery.
If you've done your ACL you're probably experiencing quite a lot of swelling in your knee which can often make it feel really stiff and restrict the range of motion in both the bending and extending movements of the knee.
Prior to surgery the main thing that we want to focus on is getting as much range back as soon as possible and making the knee happy so if you recover a lot quicker from the surgery. Our priorities are a range but if we can get your strength a little bit better that's also going to benefit you following the surgery.
What I'm going to do today is show you a few key exercises to start you off and start getting you moving, get that knee a little bit more settled and make you feel a little bit more comfortable prior to surgery.
The first exercise that we're going to go through is starting lying on your back and all we're going to do is a heel slide. For this movement, all we're going to do is slide your heel towards your bum as far as you can and then slide back down.
If this exercise is painful you want to push into an area that's a little bit uncomfortable but not pushing through your pain.
That's our first exercise and that's going to focus on getting the bend back.
Exercise number two is going to be a quads exercise.
We're going to take a rolled up towel, we're going to put the towel underneath your knee and the focus of this one is pushing the knee down into the towel and squeezing your quad muscles as hard as you can.
These muscles are the ones on the front of your thigh and we want to try and get these muscles working hard because they're the ones that are going to help you extend your knee and get that extension back.
So that's exercise number two, same deal as the first one you want to push to a point where it can be a little bit uncomfortable but helping limit pain as much as you can.
Exercise number three is very similar but we're going to move the towel down towards our heel so that the knee is elevated off the floor.
Now if your knee is quite stiff it may be sitting with a bit of a bend in there naturally so with this one what you want to focus on doing is again squeezing your quads but this time our goal is range.
Try to get that extension back by pushing that knee down as far as you can.
You can use a towel around the foot to try and help it get a little bit further or even use your hands to just put a little bit of pressure through the front of the knee and help get a bit of a stretch through there.
Again, don't push into pain but a little bit of discomfort is okay. Prior to surgery it is crucial that we get extension back, most surgeons won't do the surgery until we get full extension through the knee.
acl injury physical exercise
These are my three key movements to get you started and get that knee settled before we can move on to further rehab.
If you are going to wait more than 2 weeks before you go for your surgery or if you're considering taking the non-surgical approach following an ACL injury it's going to be really important to get as much strength and stability back in that knee and really progress those exercises from that point.
If you injure your ACL and within a week or within a few days you're going for your surgery these exercises are going to be a really nice way to just get that knee as good as we can but please guys check in with your health professional or your sports physiotherapist prior to going for your surgery."
END TRANSCRIPT
LEARN How OUR SPORTS PHYSIO TEAM can help you?
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