ACL Injury rehab?!

ACL Injury rehab?

I had surgery for an ACL injury (cadaver + some meniscus repair) in late March. I was on crutches for a month to give my meniscus enough time to heal. Since then, I have been going to Kaiser’s physical therapy once a week, but it’s dropped off to about once every three weeks.


Has anyone been through ACL physical therapy? Can you tell me what exercises you did, how much time you spent on them per day, and how often you went in to see the therapist? Everyone keeps on telling me, “Don’t worry! Just do your rehab exercises and you’ll be fine!” but my physical therapy seems to be a really conservative treatment, consisting of really simple exercises, such as biking, lunges, and 1/3 knee bends. It’s making me a bit worried because I want to return to martial arts, which is a really high impact and fast sport, and I don’t feel like my leg is strengthening that much at all.

Different types of grafts require different rehabilitation protocol. The allograft is one that has the advantage of not having to use your own musculotendinous units, but the downside is that treatment must be a little more conservative to maintain the integrity of the graft. That, combined with the limited therapy available from Kaiser, will make your program a little more conservative...putting more responsibility on you.

A three months out, you may a candidate for stepping up your program. One of our local sugeons uses a leg press test to determine your readiness to progress to jogging. Once 70% strength affected vs. unaffected is attained, patients are allowed to resume jogging. However, this is applicable to ONLY patients seen by this doctor. Other doctors will use biodex isokinetic testing.

My point is, that there should be some assessment soon, but it is really up to the SURGEON'S protocol as to when this is appropriate. You still need to protect your graft site...just to give you an idea of when people can really start stepping up their program, look at this following example: only when the patient has attained 90% quad strength on the leg press test, will this particular surgeon allow the patient to begin activities that require jumping, cutting, lateral movements, twisting and kicking type motions. This is usually around month 5-6.

You must be patient, but I would discuss with the PT as to when reassessment for advancement in the protocol is appropriate. Do NOT try anything outside the scope of your PT without first discussing it with your PT.