ACL rupture tips for post surgery

Take it slow, very slow and also take the physical therapy serious after surgery. Eat right, don't over-do it (but keep moving as much as you can). Listen to what your body tells you and give it plenty of time to heal. Don't rush back into things. Good luck with it.

Slow down my man. At this rate, you're going to look 80 by the time you're 30 years old. What's the rush?

You only get 2 knees per lifetime. Do the pt the right way .

Listen to the doctors, take everything seriously and slow. You are already going too fast.

Better to miss out on some days riding now then have to cut your riding short by a couple years because you didn't take things seriously now.

Luckily you’re still young so your body/bones/tendons/etc are still growing. This makes for a better chance of a full recovery - but only if you take it easy and let your body recover. If it was me, I’d take a good chunk of time off and just recover as close to 100% as possible. Physical therapy is KEY.

Listen to your doctors and therapists. Do exactly as they tell you.

If you're 3 weeks pre op you should consider strengthening your quads and hamstrings(ankles and hips as well) as much as possible(consider it pre-hab). If you're good shape and strong prior to surgery then typically that means your recovery will be much more successful/faster. Build up those muscles so by the time you're out of your immobilizer and ready to begin active strengthening then you'll have the muscle memory to regain that strength it'll return much quicker.


Regaining adequate range of motion is probably going to be the hardest part as that new ligament is going to be really short/tight after fully healing so stretching is going to hurt for a while and be pretty frustrating. On the plus side, you're only 16 and youth is on your side.

Hopefully this video helps. It gives two perspectives, myself who had surgery and my friend who didnt get the surgery.

I highly recommend you stop riding until after the surgery. Every time you blow your knee out you're putting yourself at a much higher risk for more problems down the line, including but not limited to tearing your meniscus as well.

I've now torn both ACLs in my knees. My right one back in 2009, left one in 2019. The recovery and rehab sucks ass, but take it seriously and do everything they instruct you to. You'll get to a point around the 4 month mark where you think your knee feels great and want to resume riding, but your ACL graft will actually be at its weakest at this time. Your doctor can explain this better than I can, but basically when they harvest your new ACL either from your patella, hamstring, quad, or cadaver, and graft it into your body, it slowly dies then is reborn as your new ACL. There's a lot more technical terms to it but that's the gist of it. 6 months is the bare minimum for the graft to fully solidify as the new ACL, but some doctors recommend up to a year or even a year & a half. Mine recommended 6 months each time. Whatever they say, do it, because if you don't listen and start riding at the 4 month mark, you're gonna risk tearing it again then those 4 months are a waste anyway + you're back to square one.


ACL wise, mine are fine. I got unlucky with my left one though and ended up with imbalanced muscles around my kneecap, causing a tracking issue which causes pain when doing certain things which I'm still dealing with working through. Supposedly, something like that can happen with ACL surgeries, but not all the time. My right knee never had that issue, I just got unlucky this time around and after I was cleared to ride again all this covid shit happened causing me to put off seeing a doctor, which is why it's still persisting. Had I done something sooner it'd probably be back to 100% by now. Gonna give it another week or so and if there's no more improvement I'm gonna see a doctor again, but like I said the ACL portion is fine, and my other ACL from almost 12 years ago is still fine... So as long as you do as your doctor & physical therapists say, you'll be fine as well.


Also, when I say no riding before the 6 month mark... I mean no tricks. Riding a bike is actually good therapy for the knee, so once you're cleared to pedal a bike again it's okay to ride around as it strengthens & helps increase range of motion. Just be very cautious as to not fall or have to put that leg down. I personally got a road bike to pedal around on till I felt comfortable enough to get back on the bmx to pedal around on, so maybe look into that and you can at least pedal around with your friends or get out and enjoy the weather. Another thing to note is that your new graft, while still healing, is stronger than you think... There's gonna be many times your knee will pop or something (popping is 100% normal) and you'll think you retore it already before the 6 month mark, but it's just scar tissue breaking up. Obviously that doesn't mean it won't tear if you wreck/bail and land on that leg, it just means when doing rehab/walking, it's just not as likely to tear as you might think but definitely still be cautious.

Don’t rush the recovery or you may damage the repair and be back to square one. Follow the PT schedule and DO the stretches at home. Also, the anti inflammatory meds are all you need...leave the opiate medication for the tweakers and skateboarders.

Don’t walk without your crutches, even with the brace until
Recommended to do so. Also, you have to really push yourself during three PT sessions and don’t puss out.

Side note: somebody is going to have to wipe your butt for the first couple of days. Hope you got some road dogs! Good luck with the surgery and allow it to heal. Your bike and the spots aren’t going anywhere!

Vic707b wrote:

Slow down my man. At this rate, you're going to look 80 by the time you're 30 years old. What's the rush?

Yeah I know I've always been a sucker for getting hurt broken my right wrist 3 times my left once and had multiple bad concussions, always gotten unlucky seen my mates have some gnarly slams and their fine, I always seem to come of second best haha

sundaybmxRR wrote:

I highly recommend you stop riding until after the surgery. Every time you blow your knee out you're putting yourself at a much higher risk for more problems down the line, including but not limited to tearing your meniscus as well.

I've now torn both ACLs in my knees. My right one back in 2009, left one in 2019. The recovery and rehab sucks ass, but take it seriously and do everything they instruct you to. You'll get to a point around the 4 month mark where you think your knee feels great and want to resume riding, but your ACL graft will actually be at its weakest at this time. Your doctor can explain this better than I can, but basically when they harvest your new ACL either from your patella, hamstring, quad, or cadaver, and graft it into your body, it slowly dies then is reborn as your new ACL. There's a lot more technical terms to it but that's the gist of it. 6 months is the bare minimum for the graft to fully solidify as the new ACL, but some doctors recommend up to a year or even a year & a half. Mine recommended 6 months each time. Whatever they say, do it, because if you don't listen and start riding at the 4 month mark, you're gonna risk tearing it again then those 4 months are a waste anyway + you're back to square one.


ACL wise, mine are fine. I got unlucky with my left one though and ended up with imbalanced muscles around my kneecap, causing a tracking issue which causes pain when doing certain things which I'm still dealing with working through. Supposedly, something like that can happen with ACL surgeries, but not all the time. My right knee never had that issue, I just got unlucky this time around and after I was cleared to ride again all this covid shit happened causing me to put off seeing a doctor, which is why it's still persisting. Had I done something sooner it'd probably be back to 100% by now. Gonna give it another week or so and if there's no more improvement I'm gonna see a doctor again, but like I said the ACL portion is fine, and my other ACL from almost 12 years ago is still fine... So as long as you do as your doctor & physical therapists say, you'll be fine as well.


Also, when I say no riding before the 6 month mark... I mean no tricks. Riding a bike is actually good therapy for the knee, so once you're cleared to pedal a bike again it's okay to ride around as it strengthens & helps increase range of motion. Just be very cautious as to not fall or have to put that leg down. I personally got a road bike to pedal around on till I felt comfortable enough to get back on the bmx to pedal around on, so maybe look into that and you can at least pedal around with your friends or get out and enjoy the weather. Another thing to note is that your new graft, while still healing, is stronger than you think... There's gonna be many times your knee will pop or something (popping is 100% normal) and you'll think you retore it already before the 6 month mark, but it's just scar tissue breaking up. Obviously that doesn't mean it won't tear if you wreck/bail and land on that leg, it just means when doing rehab/walking, it's just not as likely to tear as you might think but definitely still be cautious.

This is really helpful my surgeon is saying I should be able to ride after 6 months and ill be back at 100% after a year, that's if I do the rehab properly I'm definitely going to be trying my hardest to do the rehab as I want to get back on the bike as quick as possible.
I think I'm going to have to buy a indoor trainer i can put a road bike on as I don't trust my self outside ill end up doing some stupid shit and hurt my self again i heard around the 5 month mark is when i can start getting a bit more active so I might have to get a commuting bike or something along the lines so i can still go ride street with my friends and I wont have my BMX to tempt me. I don't think ill have time to ride anyway as ill be so caught up in rehab and my senior exams.

Isaacbmx2004 wrote:

Yeah I know I've always been a sucker for getting hurt broken my right wrist 3 times my left once and had multiple bad concussions, always gotten unlucky seen my mates have some gnarly slams and their fine, I always seem to come of second best haha

Story of my life!

Everyone around bailing hard and coming out just fine, and then I put my foot down wrong and blow up 7 ligaments in my ankle or my meniscus and MCL.

BMXogRider wrote:

Don’t rush the recovery or you may damage the repair and be back to square one. Follow the PT schedule and DO the stretches at home. Also, the anti inflammatory meds are all you need...leave the opiate medication for the tweakers and skateboarders.

Don’t walk without your crutches, even with the brace until
Recommended to do so. Also, you have to really push yourself during three PT sessions and don’t puss out.

Side note: somebody is going to have to wipe your butt for the first couple of days. Hope you got some road dogs! Good luck with the surgery and allow it to heal. Your bike and the spots aren’t going anywhere!

Thanks man I'm definitely not looking forward to the someone wiping my ass part I've already been through that with my broken leg(had a cast up to my hip) wasn't very pleasant, I'm also not looking forward to the meds they are horrible shit when I did my leg I was on tramadol and got addicted to it in the short time I had it glad I didn't get prescribed more.
I'm already aware of the brace of doom that is coming got to be in it for 6-8 weeks from my shin to my thigh but its nothing new was in my leg one for 13 weeks, just got to keep my knee moving so it doesn't crap its self on me.

MostlyBowlDoggin wrote:

Listen to your doctors and therapists. Do exactly as they tell you.

If you're 3 weeks pre op you should consider strengthening your quads and hamstrings(ankles and hips as well) as much as possible(consider it pre-hab). If you're good shape and strong prior to surgery then typically that means your recovery will be much more successful/faster. Build up those muscles so by the time you're out of your immobilizer and ready to begin active strengthening then you'll have the muscle memory to regain that strength it'll return much quicker.


Regaining adequate range of motion is probably going to be the hardest part as that new ligament is going to be really short/tight after fully healing so stretching is going to hurt for a while and be pretty frustrating. On the plus side, you're only 16 and youth is on your side.

I've done heaps of strengthening running, riding, gym work, Nordic curls all that stuff my right leg is nearly at the same strength as my left I don't think it ever will be the same as previous injury's have made it quite skimpy I've been doing all the strengthening since September 2020 when the hospital finally figured I had done my acl quite gutted that they didn't pick it up earlier would of been good as gold by now.

Vic707b wrote:

Slow down my man. At this rate, you're going to look 80 by the time you're 30 years old. What's the rush?

Isaacbmx2004 wrote:

Yeah I know I've always been a sucker for getting hurt broken my right wrist 3 times my left once and had multiple bad concussions, always gotten unlucky seen my mates have some gnarly slams and their fine, I always seem to come of second best haha

p1p1092 wrote:

Story of my life!

Everyone around bailing hard and coming out just fine, and then I put my foot down wrong and blow up 7 ligaments in my ankle or my meniscus and MCL.

haha finally found someone who understands i was at the bike park in 2019 and the dirt under me gave way while I was standing fell backwards down a bank and snapped my arm just before the wrist clean off across the olnus and radius the thing is 1 hour before that I watched my friend go like 40kmh into a tree and he was fine just bounced right off the tree.

JRhobbsbmx wrote:

Hopefully this video helps. It gives two perspectives, myself who had surgery and my friend who didnt get the surgery.

This video helps so much thanks man i had the option of not doing the surgery I wasn't gonna do the surgery because it was holding up fine went to the skatepark and blew my knee out again doing a tailwhip, went home and called the surgeon saying I want surgery, taking my feet of freak me out as well at the moment my hand tricks are fine super confident with them doing stuff with my feet not so much.
what brace are you using I might have to get one for when I get back to riding what's it like to ride in?

Isaacbmx2004 wrote:

This is really helpful my surgeon is saying I should be able to ride after 6 months and ill be back at 100% after a year, that's if I do the rehab properly I'm definitely going to be trying my hardest to do the rehab as I want to get back on the bike as quick as possible.
I think I'm going to have to buy a indoor trainer i can put a road bike on as I don't trust my self outside ill end up doing some stupid shit and hurt my self again i heard around the 5 month mark is when i can start getting a bit more active so I might have to get a commuting bike or something along the lines so i can still go ride street with my friends and I wont have my BMX to tempt me. I don't think ill have time to ride anyway as ill be so caught up in rehab and my senior exams.

The indoor trainer isn't a bad idea at all, plus once you're around the 5 month mark and feel comfortable pedaling around you can take the bike off and ride that around with your friends like you mentioned.

But yeah I got cleared to ease back into more activities at the 5 month mark each time. No cutting motions until the 6 month mark though, but around the 5 month mark is when the graft is starting to fully become the new ACL and you can handle doing more things. Your physical therapists/doctor will instruct you on what those things are, every doctor/therapist has different protocols & guidelines, especially considering which type of graft you get.

One important piece of advice I can give you is don't measure your progress, or lack there of, against other peoples progress. What I mean is, if you reach say the 3 month mark and can't do certain things yet like get your heel to your butt, and someone else at rehab is at 2 months or less and can easily get their heel to their butt, don't get discouraged... Every body is different and will heal differently given a lot of different factors. You want to work on extension/flexion as much as you can, and barring a few rarities such as a cyclops lesion or something, eventually the extension/flexion will come back but ONLY if you keep working on it. My 1st time around, I didn't get full extension on my leg until closing in on the 6 month mark... 2nd time around, I think I got it within 2 months max.

Everything that has been mentioned itt, do it man. Take some time off, start off slow with some nature walks and progress into longer hikes then distance riding. This is what helped me, me knee still acts up if it’s cold outside. Shit sucks.

Isaacbmx2004 wrote:

I'm only 16 and I tore the ACL of the bone well more like the plate that the ACL is attached to came off the bone my right leg is already pretty damaged I've snapped my tibula as well, I did this early 2020 and I've been riding since, i can sprint and jump and everything and I can bail out of Tailwhips and stuff all fine, somehow my meniscus is not damaged badly at all, I've popped my knee out 9 times and I'm still riding my knee feels stable until its not if you know what I mean my surgery is in 3 weeks and I'm not looking forward to recovery.

help or any advice would be greatly appreciated I'm sh*tting my self about post op i don't wanna miss out on progression and riding with my mates

i torn my ACL 2015 at FISE WORLD series Langkawi Malaysia....rest for 4 month 6 month rehab without ACL surgery and 2017 back on bike with same level of riding but less big on air or risk trick to pull until now 2021 back on bmx without knee surgery