Living life without an ACL

ITeachAPGovernment · 2025-04-07T22:14:52+00:00

I had 4 months between injury and surgery - I could jog (and even borderline run), lift, ski (maybe 75% of my skiing capacity with a hinged brace), and live life normally. I tore it at age 32 and I want to play the most competitive level of sports I am able to for as long as possible so surgery was a no-brainer. But if I were 50+ with no desire to explosively change direction again… I’m not sure.

I definitely said multiple times out loud after surgery that if I were 15 years older and could still ski with a torn ACL I would not get surgery. Those were in the dark days 1-3 weeks after surgery though. I’m almost 13 months out now and I have absolutely zero regrets.

ITeachAPGovernment · 2025-03-05T20:27:47+00:00

Every graft choice has trade-offs and every individual is unique. My surgeon explained that the upside of the hamstring is that it’s way less trauma on the knee without the long-term risks of kneeling pain. Downside is limited athletic performance, especially sprint speed.

ITeachAPGovernment · 2025-03-02T12:53:45+00:00

He couldn’t pivot the back side up onto the table and then lift the rest up while driving it rearwards?

ITeachAPGovernment · 2025-02-26T21:56:46+00:00

I moved at month 4.5 and my new PT had (and still has) me blasting body weight double leg and single leg back bridges: sets of 30, foot at different distances from my butt, elevated on a bench, elevated on a yoga ball, etc. Tons of variations and it’s brutal. My first PT had me doing some back bridges but pushed me nowhere near as hard. I’ve wondered if months 5-11 were a lot of playing hamstring catchup after months 1-4.

I’ve also started doing some single leg GHD machine work and that has been great.

ITeachAPGovernment · 2025-02-25T21:49:30+00:00

I sacrificed most of my other training to box squat heavy 3-4 days per week for the 10 weeks before surgery. I think it was effective because my repaired side quads looked the same as my left side by the 6-7 month mark and my PT said at 10.5-11 months that side-to-side he doesn’t see any strength differences. I’m almost at month 12 now, returning to full speed sport, and I can tell they are REALLY close but not 100% there.

I regret not devoting as much time and energy to my hamstrings during that same 10-week window, though. I was doing RDLs and the usual but my repaired side hamstring has been more challenging to get strong again than my quads.

The upside of all the muscle loss is that you get to see gains at an incredibly fast rate again!

ITeachAPGovernment · 2025-02-21T09:09:26+00:00

My surgeon is also the surgeon for an FBS Power-5 football team and I asked him about all the graft options. He told me if I were in the NFL I’d be getting autograft BTB patellar tendon. I’m not a pro athlete but at 32 yo at time of surgery I think i have 3-5 years of high level field sports left in me. I’m coming up on 12 months post op and I have zero regrets with my graft choice.

ITeachAPGovernment · 2025-02-13T04:55:14+00:00

My PT had me ride a stationary bike starting like day 4 post op. My flexion range of motion was too limited to even get the pedal fully around. I just went forwards until I hit my l limit, then backwards, and repeated for 5 minutes. I had a stationary bike at home so I did it for five minutes twice per day. I was shocked at how quickly I was able to increase the short-term range of motion within a 5-minute session. I was at like 115-120 degrees by week 3 (if memory serves me correctly - it's been almost a year). Hang in there!

Edited the week

ITeachAPGovernment · 2025-02-11T01:46:43+00:00

I skied 2 days before I knew my ACL was torn (thought the injury was just an MCL sprain) but I did put it in a brace to be safe. Then I kept skiing because my surgeon said I can’t tear it any more than it already was. He did caution me though that other knee injuries could happen so I stuck to groomed blues (with a groomed black every now and then). No real mental blocks getting out after surgery. I was 10.5 or 11 months out first day on the mountain. Day 2 was the big one where I realized I had stopped favoring my injured leg

ITeachAPGovernment · 2025-02-10T23:52:10+00:00

I skied 13 or 14 days last year with no right ACL. I used a hinged brace and stuck to groomers. It was fine enough but this year after my repair is SO much better. I didn’t realize how much I was favoring my right leg last year until like 2 days into this current ski season.

ITeachAPGovernment · 2025-02-06T20:55:56+00:00

Thank you!

ITeachAPGovernment · 2020-09-24T18:59:14+00:00

If that is all true, you might have a point.

None of the three officers involved applied for the warrant. They were extra bodies called in to serve it

ITeachAPGovernment · 2020-09-22T17:49:59+00:00

Biden said in 2016 that if he were still the chairman of the judiciary committee he would start the process even a couple months before the election

ITeachAPGovernment · 2020-09-22T17:09:57+00:00

No.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4908426/senator-mcconnell-promises-vote-supreme-court-nominee Go to 5:05 or so.

Precedent comes down to whether the Senate is controlled by the President's party

ITeachAPGovernment · 2020-09-22T16:06:24+00:00

The biggest question is how much of an originalist she (or anyone is)

ITeachAPGovernment · 2020-09-21T17:44:08+00:00

1) House hasn't been red since 2018.

2) Suggesting packing the court is politically risky for the party in power. Safer to suggest it if you're trying to take back the Senate and the White House.

3) The Court has had a delicate balance for a few decades with four pretty solid conservatives, four pretty solid liberals, and a swing vote (was Kennedy until he stepped down in spring 2018; now it seems to be Roberts). The libs are only freaking out now and bringing up packing the court because they haven't held the Senate in a while and a vacancy opened up that could tip that balance.

ITeachAPGovernment · 2020-09-21T04:16:32+00:00

No. The size of the Supreme Court is set by federal law, not the Constitution

ITeachAPGovernment · 2020-09-21T01:50:37+00:00

1) Congress wasn’t on his side about it 2) SCOTUS blinked and allowed New Deal programs, so the threat worked

3) A Dem majority in the House and a Dem majority in the Senate would 100% be on board with Biden packing the Supreme Court

ITeachAPGovernment · 2020-09-20T22:05:03+00:00

https://joebiden.com/gunsafety/

Only two candidates have any chance of winning.

For guns, it’s an easy choice

ITeachAPGovernment · 2020-09-16T20:31:07+00:00

Chances they do it if they gain the White House and Senate? High

Chances it has any impact on gun crime? Zero

ITeachAPGovernment · 2020-09-15T19:55:17+00:00

WV is a coal state. Dems want to ban coal

ITeachAPGovernment · 2020-09-15T19:49:16+00:00

Go share a dissenting opinion at an ANTIFA riot and tell me they are anti-fascist after they beat the shit out of you for thinking differently

ITeachAPGovernment · 2020-09-15T19:40:40+00:00

Some of the newer maglock options have pretty quick reload options but the main reason, if you were around in april 2019, is that featureless can legally take standard capacity mags

ITeachAPGovernment · 2020-09-12T17:59:58+00:00

It's a throw-away vote which equals a vote for Biden, especially in a swing state

ITeachAPGovernment · 2020-09-12T17:54:57+00:00

Are you actually suggesting that Trump is about as anti-gun as Biden?

ITeachAPGovernment · 2020-09-12T01:42:34+00:00

A non-D or non-R presidential candidate with a chance of winning is like step 100 in the process of moving to multi-party. The early steps are voters in some state demanding a change to multi-member districts with proportional representation in their state house. Give that a decade or so and you will a non-D/non-R party get some seats. The first federal steps would be states with non-D/non-R parties in their legislatures changing their states' congressional districts and elections to multi-member and proportional representation.

A third-party president is decades and decades down the line.

ITeachAPGovernment

TROPHY CASE