Tearing your ACL -- or anterior cruciate ligament -- decreases your knee stability, making it difficult to perform activities that involve rapid speed or direction changes. Snowboards keep your feet in place, but you rely on your knee joints to hold your position and carve down a slope. Certain activities may not require the ACL, but falls can worsen your injury, tearing other ligaments or damaging cartilage. Talk to your doctor about snowboarding with your ACL injury.
Knee Ligaments
Your thigh and shin bones -- femur and tibia, respectively -- are held together by four ligaments. The ACL and PCL, or posterior cruciate ligament, form an "X" shape with the ACL attaching to the tibia more medially, or to the inside, than the PCL. Your ACL limits rotation and forward motion of the tibia while the PCL limits backward rotation. The sides of the knee joint are held together by the collateral ligaments. Your medial and lateral collateral ligaments, MCL and LCL, limit sideways motion.
ACL and Your Lifestyle
ACL surgery is an elective procedure; you may choose not to repair the ligament. You can lead a happy, "normal" lifestyle without an ACL; however, you may have to adjust your activities to suit life without full knee stability. Bicycling, swimming, walking and moderate running can be performed without complete use of your ACL. Because the ACL prevents your tibia from rotating forward, you need it to make quick directional or acceleration changes. Activities like tennis, basketball and soccer are difficult without full knee function. With your feet strapped to a snowboard, you often rely on a stable knee to slow down and turn. Handling moguls, performing tricks and landing jumps are potentially dangerous with a torn ACL.
Additional Injury Risk
While waiting for your joint swelling to subside, you may elect to opt out of surgery. Minor strains and tears of the ligament -- i.e. partial rather than full tears -- may heal on their own without surgery. A complete tear, however, always requires surgery to heal. Choosing to snowboard without full use of your ACL puts you at risk for further knee injury. Your knee can give out during a turn or landing from a bump or jump. Falling puts your PCL, MCL and LCL at risk, as well as muscles and tendons. Your ACL is also linked to cartilage in your knee joint, which can tear if your ACL or other ligaments are injured.
Preventing Injury
Maintaining adequate and balanced muscle strength is important in preventing first time and repeated ACL injuries. Athletes, especially women, are advised to strengthen their hamstrings, or the back thigh muscles, to match the strength of the front thigh or quadriceps muscles. Training programs that include strengthening and stability exercises, aerobic conditioning, plyometric exercises, "jump training" and risk-awareness are effective in preventing ACL tears, according to MayoClinic.com. Balance and proprioceptive exercises increase your body's awareness of its position in space, and can help prevent falls and chronic joint injuries.
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