Protecting Your ACL

Posted by adrock227 on Jun 12, 2012 in Health & Beauty, Sports | 0 comments

One of the more common yet also more devastating injuries that can occur with an athlete is an ACL injury. This can sideline you for quite some time and they can make it difficult to get back into the game once the injury occurs. That is why much of the focus on sports medicine is in preventing ACL injuries through a series of exercises and stretching. There are different ACL injury prevention exercises that are available, each of which is going to accomplish a similar yet different task. What are some of those exercises and what can you do to ensure that you are getting the most out of them?

First of all, it is always a good idea for you to warm up before either playing or exercising (Source: Knee Injury Statistics by Bench Busters). You should then stretch as part of a regular routine, focusing on the hip flexors, abductors and calves. It is an important that you do strength training exercises to build up the muscles around the ACL and to give your needs additional strength so that they can add support. Doing these exercises, such as squats, lunges and core strengthening can do much to keep you from being one of the knee injury statistics that are far too often seen. When planning these stretching and strength training exercises, incorporate the assistance of a trained professional who can keep your form perfect and keep you from overworking the area. Maintain your hydration and get plenty of rest between exercise sessions as well as between game sessions. You will find that it assists you in avoiding the problem in the first place.