Hey everybody, it's Doctor Jo, and today I'm gonna show you some stretches and exercises
for an ACL Tear that's either non-operative or a pre-op workout. Alright, let's get started.
So the ACL stands for Anterior Cruciate Ligament. And it is the ligament in your knee that prevents
it form sliding forward and backward to give you that stability. So if it's torn, besides
a lot of pain, a lot of times you have instability in that knee. And it feels like it's wobbling
when you walk and it can be really painful. So even if you're gonna have to have surgery,
a lot of times it's a really good idea to do the stretches and exercises before because
the more motion and strength you can have before surgery, the better your recovery is
gonna be afterwards. So let's just start off with some simple stuff to get that knee moving
and get some of that swelling and irritation out of there. The first one is just gonna
be a heel slide. So the leg that you're gonna work, you're gonna put it all the way down.
And it's gonna be just like it sounds, you're gonna slide your heel up towards your bottom.
So just bringing it up this way and then slowly coming back down. Now if it's hurting, you
might only be able to get to about here. And that's ok. Just go, give it a little push
and then come back down. But you don't really want to force it through pain right now. Especially
if you have that tear in there, you just want to keep that movement that you can and get
that circulation in there to help some of that swelling get out. So just start off with
about 10 of these and then work your way up to more sets of 10 and then 20 - 25 if those
become easy. And then coming back down. Then next one is gonna be a quad set. With a quad
set, what you're doing is squeezing that quad muscle. Tightening it up to push that knee
down into the ground. Sometimes people take a little towel to roll it up. If you have
that tear and it's just happened recently, it might be really painful to straighten it
all the way out, so putting a little towel roll might help. But otherwise you're gonna
contract that muscle there, squeeze down just like you're trying to push your knee down
into the ground. If you pull your toes up, that helps do that setting as well. Hold it
for about 3 - 5 seconds and then relax. So you see how it's squeezing there to push down
into the ground. Holding it, coming back up. Again, just start off with about 10 of those
and work your up from there. The next one is just gonna be an ankle pump. Because even
though stuff is going on at your knee, the muscles that move the ankle also come up around
that knee. So you want to make sure all that stuff is working and moving so it doesn't
get tight on you. Just prop it up on something. Foam rollers work really well, you don't have
to use a foam roller, you can just put it off the edge of the bed, or prop it up on
a stool on the ground, but you want your heel to be free moving because you're just gonna
push down and then come all the way back up. Try and keep your knee straight if you can,
you saw mine try and bend a little bit, but just push down and then come up. And you're
gonna be working these calf muscles in the back, the anterior muscles in the front, and
just getting those moving. Again, making a natural pump, that's why it's called ankle
pump, to get that irritation, swelling, inflammation out of the leg back in to your body. So with
these, you can start off with more than just 10, you can go ahead and start off with 15
- 20 of them. And do them several times throughout the day just to keep that swelling out of
there. Alright. The next one we'll still use the roll for that, is gonna be, we call it
a short arc quad, SAQ. Put the roll, or you can roll up a big towel, and put it up under
the knee. Just relax the knee. The knee is not gonna come up off of the roll. So this
is nice cause it helps to support the knee a little bit. And then you're just gonna try
and straighten out your leg as much as you can. And then slowly come back down. Really
try to control the coming back down. Don't just plop it back down. Besides it hurting
a little bit, it's not actually working the muscles. So come up, kind of squeeze at the
end, again squeezing that quad muscle, and then slowly come back down. Just start off
again, with 10 of these and then you can slowly work your way up after that. The next one
is gonna be a straight leg raise. Most of the time you want to start lying all the way
down, but you can kind of prop yourself up as well. The higher up you go, the harder
it is, so I'm just gonna kind of prop up on my elbows. Again you want to keep your knee
as straight as you can, so kind of squeezing that quad muscle to lock the leg out. Also
pull up your toes cause that helps keep everything nice and straight. And then just slowly lift
it up to about even with the other side, and really controlled coming back down. Again
the coming back down is just as important as the going up. So make sure going nice and
slow and controlled. Again just starting off with 10 of these and then work your way up
to about 20 - 25. If 20 -25 becomes easy, then you can put a little bit of weight on
your ankles just starting off with 1 pound. And then the last one is just a prop. A knee
prop. And the reason you want to do this is to try and get the motion in your knee here
cause a lot of times after you have that tear, your knee doesn't want to straighten out anymore.
So again, taking a roll or sit in a chair and put another chair in front of you or ottoman
or a stool. And just let it prop up there. So, if you're knee is feeling like this. Gravity
will help kind of straighten it out while you're propping it up there. Now again, this
might be very uncomfortable when you first do it. You might just want to do it for 30
seconds to a minute. But then eventually work your way up to 2 minutes, 5 minutes and hopefully
it will just start straightening out for you. There you have it, those are your stretches
and exercises for an ACL Tear non-operatively or pre-operatively. If you have any questions,
leave them in the comments section. If you'd like to check out some other videos, go to
AskDoctorJo.com and remember, be safe, have fun and I hope you feel better soon.