hey everybody it's Doctor Jo and cool bear and today we're gonna show you the top
seven treatments for an ACL sprain so let's get started
so there's many different kinds of ACL sprains
there's different grades and then there's also a complete tear so this is
really just for a sprain to help it or even if you have a complete tear but
this is before surgery this is not after surgery because a lot of times after a
surgery there's different protocols depending on what graft you have and
what all they do in surgery but it's really important to talk to your doctor
or surgeon if you need surgery or not some people don't need surgery it
depends on your activity level and the kinds of things you do so if you try
some of these and it doesn't feel like it's helping make sure and talk again
with your doctor or go see a physical therapist for some other treatment so
the first one is just going to be a heel slide you can do heel slides sitting
down on the floor or you can do it lying down
usually lying down it's just a little bit more comfortable and this is just to
help get some motion a lot of times when you have that ACL sprain it's really
tight and that knee joint sometimes people who can't straighten it all the
way out sometimes they can't get a good bend so a heel slide is just exactly how it
sounds you're sliding that heel up and down so starting out as straight as you
can get your leg and it might not be completely straight you're just gonna
slide that heel up and really just try and go as far as you comfortably can
make a little pause and then come back down I like keeping this side bent
because I feel like you can get a little bit more of a pull sometimes people just
keep it down and do the other side which is fine but again I feel like it's a
little more comfortable on your body if you want a little bit more of a stretch
when you're doing the heel slide you can take a strap or a belt and when you come
up if you want more you can take that strap and just kind of help pull it up a
little bit to get more of that slide but again it shouldn't be painful you're not
trying to pull it up into pain you should just feel some tension in there
and then slide it back down so this only needs to be done maybe 10
times two maybe two sets of ten a couple times a day really just to get that
bend in there the next one is going to be a quad set so a lot of times again
with that ACL sprain or a tear you don't have that full extension in there or
that straightening out of the knee so quad sets do a really good job of
helping to get more of that extension in there and to start activating that quad
muscle because a lot of times after that sprain those quad muscles just shut off
and that's usually even after surgery as well that's really hard to get those
quads activating again so starting early to get them activating and keep them
contracting is really really important you can do it just flat but if you're
not quite at full extension it might help to take a towel a little rolled-up
towel or a small little roll and put it underneath your knee to give yourself a
target so the goal is to squeeze push your knee down into that role but not
lift up your heels some people do this and that's not exactly what I'm looking
for I want you to push down into there where you're contracting that quad
muscle and you might be able to see it a little bit where I'm squeezing and
contracting that now if you've just had a sprain or a tear you might be
squeezing and you're not seeing much movement in there and that's that's okay
just really try and push down this to that where you're really just trying to
squish one what's underneath your knee to contract that muscle sometimes if
it's not doing a lot if you just tap it a little bit while you're doing it you
can if you have an electrical stimulation machine you can do that as
well a muscle stimulation and then it will help contract that muscle as well
but when you go into the squeeze try and hold it for about five seconds give it a
good squeeze again keeping that heel down and then relaxing it maybe do that
ten times again a couple times throughout the day you don't want to
over work the muscle but you want to keep it moving so then the next one is
going to be a prop a knee prop and so this again is to help with that knee
extension you can just use a roll again if you're on the floor if you're sitting
in a chair you can prop it up on a stool or another chair in front of
you but this time you're just trying to relax that knee so let's say I don't have
that full extension I'm about here I can't straighten out my knee all the way
if I'm just relaxing it and letting gravity just push down on it a lot of
times eventually it'll start to straighten out as you hold it there so
this one's pretty easy you don't have to do anything so if you want to do this
while you're watching TV maybe if you're working at a desk you can prop it up
underneath the desk so then you don't have to think about it because it'll
probably be uncomfortable that's just because everything's tight under there
but try and just let all those muscles relax and just let it go back down so
maybe two to three minutes at a time you might just want to start off with 30
seconds to a minute the first couple times you do it and just see how you
feel but again you can do that a couple times a day so then the next one is
going to be a hamstring stretch a lot of times once you have that sprain in
there all these muscles around the knee the quad the hamstrings the calf muscles
all get really tight and those are all important to stretch I'm just going to
show you the hamstring stretch today but you can definitely check out those other
stretches the the way I like to stretch the hamstrings the best is with a strap
because then you can lie down and relax your back and really just focus on the
hamstring stretch so take a strap or a belt
dog leash works really well something with loop but not something like a band
you wanted to be tight where it doesn't give and just wrap it around your foot
you're gonna lie down and then keeping your leg as straight as you can so if
you have a little bit of a bend because of the sprain that's okay but you don't
want to actively bend your knee you want to try and keep that leg really straight
and you're gonna take the strap and pull it up so I'm not lifting my leg actively
I'm lifting it with the strap and just pulling up so you can only go to here
and you feel a stretch that's fine and then you're gonna hold the stretch for
30 seconds if you can bring it up a little bit higher that that's great too
you just want to go where you feel that comfortable stretch but if I start doing
this to bring it up then I'm no longer stretching out my hamstrings because
they come and they cross the knee so if the knees bent I'm not really stretching
them so if your knee starts to bend then come back down and try and straighten it
back out if you want more of a stretch you can
pull your toes up and that'll also stretch out those calf muscles just a
little bit as well so 30 seconds three times doing that so after you've got
them stretched out a little bit gotten some motion in there now you want to do
some strengthening so with the strengthening you're just going to start
off with a simple straight leg raise so it's just again how it sounds a lot of
the stretches and exercises are just how they sound so again I like propping up
my opposite leg just especially for this one one cuz it gives me a target for my
other leg and two it takes some pressure off of my low back if you've got an
injury to your knee and you've been kind of hobbling around on it for a couple
days you're probably gonna have a little bit of back pain too so this just helps
take the pressure off of it so with the straight leg raise you're gonna pull
your toes up towards you that's going to help a lock out your leg and activate
those muscles again if you've got that little bend in there because you can't
straighten it out that's okay still try and pull those toes up to lock
it out and then you're just gonna lift it out to about the height of the other
side so you're not coming up all the way up here and you're not just lifting it
down there even though if that's all you can do that's okay but if you could come
up you want to be about equal to the other side you also want to go slow and
control this isn't doing an exercise this this is just using momentum so you
really want to come up nice and slow and you want to go down nice and slow as
well so again I just start off with maybe 10 if that's doable do two sets of
10 a couple times a day and then that should really get you going so the next
ones are gonna be standing up so the next exercise is going to be a terminal
knee extension and basically just what that means is you're extending your knee
in a closed chain position so you're not your foots not up in the air and you're
and you're trying to extend it or straightening it but your foot is down
so you can start off without any resistance and so really what I like to
start off having people do to get used to it it's just kind of been learning
like this and then your heel can be up and then you're just kind of going down
trying to straighten that knee and then bend it again so
you're extending terminally extending that knee and so if this is comfortable
and this is doable and you don't really feel like it's doing a whole lot then
you can use a resistive band so just make a loop and then anchor it on to
something solid so with with the chair I definitely need to hold on to the chair
so the chair doesn't come flying back to me but you can anchor it in a door you
can have somebody hold on to it there's a couple different things you can do but
this works pretty well as long as you're holding on to it so it doesn't come
flying toward you so again I'm just kind of starting with my knee bent you can
you can put your heel all the way down you can have it up just a little bit
some people might tell you a little bit differently but all you're gonna do is
then just try and straighten out your knees see how I'm getting that
resistance of the band and then slowly unlock that knee because when you have
that ACL sprain it's really hard to lock your knee you don't have that stability
in your knee anymore it becomes unstable people say you know it just feels like
it's wiggling around in here and so you really want to do that controlled motion
because that's gonna help you get that stability back so really just extending
that knee trying to get it as straight as you can and slowly coming back so you
don't want it to be like this because then you're just gonna hurt it even more
you just really want to go nice and slow and controlled and so I would start off
with the lightest band this and the thera-band series is the second heaviest
but I would start off with the lightest one whatever brand that you have so the
last exercise is going to be a balance and reach exercise so again when you
have that knee that is no longer stable anymore because that ligament that ACL
is trying to heal it's unstable and so what you want to do is really strengthen
those muscles around it to help stabilize that knee now once you tear a
ligament especially if you completely tear it it's not going to heal if you
sprain it you can kind of scar up the ligament and make sure that it's a
little bit stronger but a ligament itself once is torn it doesn't heal you
want to strengthen those muscles around the knee so balancing is really really
great for that great for your ankles for your knees and
for your hips and you want to work all those joints around the knee as well as
the knee itself so I would start off definitely holding on to something and
just trying to get that balance because the first time you do it that knee might
give out on you so you really want to make sure that you're getting some good
stability in there squeeze those glutes nice and tight that's gonna help kind of
ground you to the floor and just start off trying to balance once you get that
down and maybe you're just holding on with a couple fingers and then maybe you
can go off and then not hold on to anything at all then after you get that
then you can start getting a little bit of movement where you're just reaching
forward kind of bending at your hips to get some of that balance you can go
forward you can bring your arm out to the side you can go towards the other
side just to get some different movements to work on that balance so
again I'd start off holding on not moving at all maybe just 10 or 15
seconds and see how you feel and eventually progress to that but again if
you have a sprain make sure you talk with your doctor make sure it's okay to
go ahead and start exercising because everyone is different every sprain is
different every tear is different so if you ask me I don't know because I
can't evaluate you so those are your top seven treatments for an ACL Sprain I
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