The Blog
3 Tips for Gaining Extension
3 Tips for Gaining Extension After ACL surgery, gaining back range of motion is essential in the healing process. Without full range of motion, the knee and the joints close to it will be comprised and lose efficiency ultimately causing further pain and injury. During...
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What is Proprioception?
What is Proprioception? Proprioceptors are sensory receptors located within joints, muscles, and tendons that relay information to the subconscious and conscious parts of the central nervous system based on your awareness in space and during movements. They are...
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Shock Wave Therapy Post ACL Reconstruction
Shock Wave Therapy Post ACL Reconstruction Shockwave is an acoustic wave which carries high energy to soft tissue or joints in the body. The energy promotes regeneration and stimulates reparative processes of the bones, tendons and other soft tissues. ...
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Blood Flow Restriction Training Post ACL Reconstruction
Blood Flow Restriction Training Post ACL Reconstruction After ACL reconstruction, gaining back strength can take up to a year or more. It requires constant effort and training but for the first few months following surgery, only minimal loads and exercises are safe...
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Benefits of Electrical Stimulation
Benefits of Electrical Stimulation Electrical stimulation sometimes referred to as e stem or TENS is a recovery technique that can be used in 2 ways; to relieve pain or to re-educate muscles. The devices come in many different sizes and usually have two basic...
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If You Tear a Knee Ligament, Arthritis is Likely to Follow in 10 Years
If You Tear a Knee Ligament, Arthritis is Likely to Follow in 10 Years Check out the most recent article in the NY Times on If You Tear a Knee Ligament, Arthritis is Likely to Follow in 10 Years. Unfortunately, there is still not a ton of research...
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How to Heal Scar Tissue After Surgery
How to Heal Scar Tissue After Surgery After ACL reconstruction surgery it is important to treat your incision with care to make sure it has the ultimate healing process. After the sutures are removed, keep the area clean and dry. There are many techniques to help the...
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Everything You Need To Know Before, During & After ACL Reconstruction
Everything You Need To Know Before, During & After ACL Reconstruction This week Jennactive has been featured in Episode 101 of the Heads ‘N Tales Podcast! To learn a more personal insight on my ACL journey and expert tips regarding surgery and recovery tune...
read moreWorry is a bully
Knee Probs: Being Prepared to Travel
Knee Probs: Being Prepared to Travel Traveling is always a hard process for me. Sitting too much, standing too much, and getting out of my routine usually cause my knees a lot of pain and swelling. I’ve found through experience that having a go to travel kit...
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How the Foot contribute to Ankle and Knee Injuries
How the Foot contributes to Ankle and Knee Injuries
read moreACL Reflections: Mindset and The Art of Letting Go
How to be a Crutch Master
How to be a Crutch Master Mastering crutches makes a major difference in your frustration regarding ACL recovery. Depending on the invasiveness of the surgery, you will be on crutches anywhere from 2 to 8 weeks. You aren’t going to be able to do much of anything...
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Safe Workouts After ACL Tear
Safe Workouts After ACL Tear It is important to do prehab or pre surgery rehabilitation so you can set yourself up for a successful surgery. The problem is many insurance companies do not cover enough visits to allow patients to see a physical therapist before and...
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To Brace or Not to Brace?
To Brace or Not to Brace? Wearing a Post Op ACL brace and wearing a functional ACL brace when returning to sports can be of some debate. Many surgeons have different preferences and more recently some surgeons are leaving it up to the decision of the athlete. So what...
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Why Female Athletes Have Increased Risk of ACL Injury
Why Female Athletes Have Increased Risk of ACL Injury
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Stay Slow: Why Safe ACL Rehab Progressions are Essential
Stay Slow: Why Safe ACL Rehab Progression are Essential The first 2 months after ACL surgery are the most important regarding the function, range of motion, and longevity of your knee. Many people try to rush their recovery and ditch their crutches too soon or attempt...
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The 2 Best Post Op ACL Rehab Exercises
The 2 Best Post Op ACL Rehab Exercises After ACL surgery you might think that you will be laying around recovering, which is partially true. Fresh out of surgery, your increased swelling is going to cause weakness and atrophy at your muscles, especially in the quads...
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#1 Most Ineffective ACL Rehab Exercise
#1 Most Ineffective ACL Rehab Exercise ACL rehabilitation science is always changing. As clinicians, it is important to stay up to date on current research based literature in order to best serve our clients and patients. ACL rehabilitation is becoming more functional...
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EmBRACE It!
EmBRACE It! Dealing with the Knee Brace: How to keep it Sexy One of my biggest struggles revolves around my knee brace. It’s uncomfortable, annoying, and most of all, hard to wear with anything except workout clothes. This works fine for me most days of the week, as I...
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ACL Reflections: We are Sacrificing our Knees for Change
ACL Reflections: We are Sacrificing our Knees for...
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Leg Dominance and ACL Injury in Soccer Players
Leg Dominance and ACL Injury in Soccer Players If you are suffering from leg dominance as a female athlete or leg dominance because of your ACL operation there are many strength training techniques to apply in order to increase strength in the non-dominant leg. In...
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Positive Affirmations before Surgery
Positive Affirmations before Surgery The hardest part about recovery from ACL surgery is the mental aspect. Consider working on your mindset leading up to the surgery and not just during your recovery process. The anticipation of the surgery itself can be one of the...
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Exclusive Interview with Dr. Tom Myers: ACL Reconstruction
Exclusive Interview with Dr. Tom Myers: ACL Reconstruction Why Surgeons as a whole are performing only a B+ ACL reconstruction and what the consequences are Graft Failure is more common than Reported by Dr. Tom Myers | Myers Sports Medicine and Orthopaedic Center...
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Mental Recovery from ACL Surgery: Celebrate your Proofs
Mental Recovery from ACL Surgery: Celebrate your Proofs One of the hardest aspects regarding ACL surgery and the ACL surgery recovery process is 100% mental. The pain is difficult but it subsides and most athletes can deal with the pain and the agony around it. But...
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ACL Recovery Nutrition
ACL Recovery Nutrition You are what you eat! Eating healthy nutrient dense foods and drinking plenty of water before and after your surgery can hugely aide in your recovery. If you are unsure about the nutrients or caloric intake that your body needs consult with your...
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Crutchspiration
Crutchspiration Let’s face it, crutches suck. No matter how in shape you are or how high your pain tolerance is using crutches makes for a tiring and frustrating time. The pain isn’t the worst part. The worst part is feeling secluded from your daily routine and...
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Get Outside of your Own Head
Get Outside of your Own Head Getting Outside of your Own Head I have this looming date in my head. December 20, 2017 my next and hopefully last ACL surgery. I am currently rehabilitating from my bone graft surgery and trying to launch a business, design a website,...
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ACL Injury, Mindset, and Self-Identity
ACL Injury, Mindset, and Self-Identity ACL injury and surgery can be a devastating season ending or career ending injury. Many athletes make the great comeback but many athletes also are unable to return to the same level of play as before the injury. It is very...
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The ACL and Environmental Issues
The ACL and Environmental Issues As you have learned in my previous posts, women are anywhere from 2-10 times more likely to tear their ACL than their male counterparts. There are a multitude of factors contributing to these statistics including anatomy, structure,...
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Mindset and ACL Recovery: Mindset is Everything
Mindset and ACL Recovery: Mindset is Everything Mindset is everything; especially when it comes to ACL surgery and recovery. This is going to be a painful struggle and it’s going to test your mental and physical capabilities. The best thing you can do to prepare...
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The ACL and Leg Dominance
The ACL and Leg Dominance Leg dominance is more common in female athletes than in males. Leg dominance is when one leg is stronger and more efficient than the other leg and is typically the dominant side of the body whether someone is right handed or left handed. Any...
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RNT – Reactive Neuromuscular Training
ACL Rehabilitation has many intricacies and deviations from patient to patient. Some patients have a harder time reactivating certain muscles or muscle groups after injury or surgery. This is a little more typical in female athletes and any patient with ongoing...
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The ACL and Quad Dominance
Most females are quad dominant meaning they heavily utilize the quadriceps muscles during actions that require quads, hamstrings, and glutes. This is important to note because if the muscles are not firing in the proper sequencing there could be a delay in the firing...
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The ACL and Over pronation at the Foot
Over pronation is when the foot naturally rolls inwards during a walking or running motion. Pronation at the foot is natural to help the body to absorb shock but over pronation is a problem which can cause issues with the arch at your foot and issues up the entire...
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So You Tore Your ACL?
You cannot control what happens to you, life can be unpredictable. But you can control your reaction to what happens to you and your attitude moving forward. The hardest part about having a setback is replaying the moment in your mind over and over wondering how you...
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The ACL and Knee Structure: the Tibial Plateau
The increased risk of ACL injury in female athletes is due to multiple factors including differences in structure like the size of the knee. The size and shape of the knee joint is typically much smaller in women than in men due to the overall size difference of a...
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Estrogen’s Effects on the ACL
Estrogen’s Effects on the ACL Estrogen is a powerful hormone. There are many aspects of it necessary for the basic functions of life and the survival of humanity but there are also qualities that some women struggle with. Although the hormones associated with a...
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ACL Rehab: Sample from Day 42
I’ve had requests to post more of my updates so here we go! Today is Day 42 from bone graft surgery. The bone graft is going to repair and rebuild bone in my knee where previous ACL graft tunnels were drilled. Because of my previous surgeries this tunnel was too...
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The ACL and Knee Valgus
The ACL and Knee Valgus Knee Valgus is when the knee naturally buckles inward during a load like a squat. Just like in the Q Angle, knee valgus increases the lateral force on the knee joint. Athletes with knee valgus are more likely to suffer from chronic knee pain...
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The ACL and the Q Angle
The ACL and the Q Angle The Q angle is the angle measuring from the ASIS at the hip to the midpoint of the patella (knee cap) at the knee. The larger the angle, the greater the lateral force on the patella basically meaning the wider your hips are the more force is...
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The ACL as a Mechanoreceptor
The ACL as a Mechanoreceptor The ACL is a major mechanoreceptor in the body meaning it provides feedback to the brain and spinal cord to let your body know it’s positions in space. After suffering an ACL injury it is essential to increase your proprioceptive awareness...
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Motion is Lotion
Motion is Lotion The first time I heard this phrase was from Jenny Moshak (one of my former supervisors and the former Head Athletic Trainer for the University of Tennessee Lady Volunteers Basketball Team). I didn’t know at the time that it would quickly become my...
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