Positive Effects Of Exercise After Acl Surgery

Exercise is an important part of any rehabilitation program, especially when you are recovering from ACL surgery. The ACL, or anterior cruciate ligament, stretches across the front of your knee at a diagonal angle, providing stability and allowing for movement in your knee joints. If you have had surgery, strengthening the joint through rehabilitation begins quickly after surgery and often lasts several months. In an article published in "The Harvard Orthopaedic Journal," researchers suggest that motion and physiologic loading are essential to the function and rehabilitation of cartilage in the knee.

Range-of-motion Exercises

During the first week after surgery, a patient usually starts slowly with movement and do basic range-of-motion exercises. It is important for the patient to extend her knee regularly during the first week to enable her to regain her full extension in the joint. The patient also will begin slowly building strength in the quadriceps and other muscles near the knee by doing heel and ankle extensions while having her leg propped up.

Squats and Weight Training

As the ACL reconstruction continues to heal, the patient can begin to move on to exercises that add strength to the legs muscles and help with knee flexibility. Doing squats, with little or no weight at first, helps strengthen the muscles connected to the knee and aids the range of motion of the knee. In addition, toe raises can help strengthen the quadriceps muscles, helping add stability and strength to the reconstructed knee.

Running and Bicycling

Eventually, the patient will regain enough stability to be able to do more strenuous exercise such as running and bicycling. In the beginning, the patient should start biking and running straight before trying any type of lateral movement to ensure that the reconstructed ACL has the stability needed to perform complex tasks. Eventually, the patient can move on to explosive drills months after the initial surgery, helping to continue strengthening the knee and quadriceps as well as increasing the patient's cardiovascular fitness.

Underwater Exercises

Exercises underwater have been shown to help athletes rehabilitate from knee injuries by allowing them to exercise without as much added pressure on the knee. Patients in research studies who exercised underwater have reported less swelling in the knee than patients who exercised on dry land. However, it is still unclear what effect, if any, underwater rehabilitation has on ACL reconstruction.