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My ACL Tear and Recovery

How to Prevent an ACL Tear

By Adam ⋅ October 3, 2008 ⋅ Email this post Email this post ⋅ Print this post Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

Maybe I’m just far more cognizant of it than I used to be, but: it seems like everyone is tearing their ACLs these days.

  • Tiger Woods.
  • Tom Brady.
  • That football coach that got run over on the sidelines recently.
  • This dude on my ultimate frisbee team.
  • Dan Connor from the Carolina Panthers.
  • Nate Burleson of the Seattle Seahawks.

What is going on?

It got me thinking: is it possible to prevent ACL tears? According to a litany of articles on the Internet, it is. But how?

  • According to a source in this article at First Tracks Online Ski Magazine, focusing on strength and flexibility will help prevent ACL injuries.
  • About.com suggests focusing on balance, power and agility will prevent ACL tears. In fact, they reference an entire ACL Injury Prevention Program. Cool.
  • FitFAQ.com has the top six exercies to prevent ACL injuries.
  • This article at USA today describes how to reduce the likelihood of an injury by 20 to 80 percent. It also features an amazing statistic: “There are an estimated 80,000 annual ACL tears in the USA; 56,000 occur during sports.” Wow.

I can tell you, prior to my tear I certainly wasn’t thinking of prevention at all.

Discussion

  1. Are you putting me on the same level as those professional athletes? cool.

    I’ve seen some youtube videos of acl injury prevention:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZ5Ts_d_OwI

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjqAs5CipSc

    – Andrew

    Posted by Andrew | October 15, 2008, 12:37 pm

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