Why are ACL tears so common today? (football, draft, pro)
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acl/mcl/pcl injuries are the most common of football injuries. the ligaments in the knees are vulnerable to certain types of blows, so they tend to stretch. when they stretch too far they tend to tear, then the surgery to repair them happens. as for not hearing about ligament injuries, actually you did hear about them regularly, but they were just called knee injuries.
Normally when anything tears, it's because its strength has been compromised - likely from repeated trauma.
These athletes repeatedly put their bodies in compromising positions, and probably weaken these ligaments over time. At some point, they just give out.
Duke had the #1 recruit a few years ago (Harry Giles) and he tore his ACL twice before he even made it to Duke. Somehow he was still able to play his freshman year and get drafted in the first round.
Duke had the #1 recruit a few years ago (Harry Giles) and he tore his ACL twice before he even made it to Duke. Somehow he was still able to play his freshman year and get drafted in the first round.
knee surgeries are amazing these days, my mother used to work in the OR working with doctors doing just such operations. the doctors these days have knee, and other joint surgeries, down to a science.
Perhaps because prior to widespread availability of MRI it was impossible to diagnose a partially vs fully torn ACL so many partially torn ACLs went undiagnosed.
Same cold be said for partial rotator cuff tears.
Duke had the #1 recruit a few years ago (Harry Giles) and he tore his ACL twice before he even made it to Duke. Somehow he was still able to play his freshman year and get drafted in the first round.
I think there was a player in the Final Four last year who didn't even have an ACL!
Surprising, to me at least, that a relatively significant % of these are "no contact" ligament tears.
Makes me wonder if muscle development has exceeded what the supporting structures can bear.
its not the muscle development, but rather the wear and tear on the joint. tear a muscle for instance, and it heals over time with therapy and medications.
tear a ligament though, and it never heals without surgery. often times what happens is that a player injures his knee, either in practice or in a game, and it might be just a sprain. but that sprain puts an extra load on the ligament that it normally doesnt have to deal with, and that stresses the ligament over time more than normal. the reason for this is when you injure the muscle, you change the load path in the joint. the muscle doesnt support the joint as it normally does due to the injury.
and sure, you ice the muscle to kill the swelling, then you heat it to get blood flowing through it again to heal, but all to often, these players get back in the game before they are ready to play, and thus they continue to damage the ligaments until they fail from fatigue.
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