Well I never thought It would happen to me… thought that was pretty naive as a torn acl even happens to the very best soccer players take Sky blue player Hayley Haagsma http://womensprosoccer.com/sky-blue-defender-hayley-haagsma-out-because-…
No doubt it is my own fault that I have ended up with a torn acl (which is basically the anterior cruciate ligament if you dont know about all of this try here…http://nuovahealth.co.uk/anterior-cruciate-ligament-knee-injury ), So I was playing football (I prefer to call it by what it is football and not soccer, why should American football get to nick the name after all football has been around a lot longer than American football ya know! but I guess all that been said before by my mate in soccer vs American football: http://womensprosoccer.com/soccer-vs-american-football (I am gonna try not to use brackets again for the rest of this blog post I swear!)), anyway where was I? Oh yes I was playing football, didn’t warm up just jumped straight into the game. Like I always do and everything was going great I managed to score a couple goals. It wasn’t a serious match only against a couple of my friends but half way into the game my leg just went and I ended up with this stringy pain in my knee, I really couldn’t do much but roll around on the floor in pain….My friends picked me up and I hopped off the pitch..so embarrassing! I later found out from this physio guy that I had torn the anterior ligament in my knee, moments before I did I remember suddenly trying to kick the ball something as simple as this must have stretched my anterior cruciate ligament just that little too far.. What I should have really have done was to warm up before the game but me being me just thought warming up was a waste of time as I never had any problems like this before and I wish I wasn’t so naive. The physio iv seen has recommended that I dont play football again for quite a while to let my knee heal up and teo help with everything that I need to wear a knee support and even when I am actually in the clear to run and play soccer again I should be thinking of wearing them all the time now. Iv been since been looking into knee supports and what different ones you can get and what they do. What I have found is that the best knee supports for sport have to be orthotic ones that limit bad movement and encourage the right movement… there are loads of knee supports that dont actually support your knees as they pointlessly strap on your knee and dont do anything… you got to find some that give you knee the right compression to the effected parts of your knee, circulate blood flow. Compression is supposed to stabilize you knee so when you run the shocks created do not damage your knee as the shocks travel up from you knee and attack you ligaments which can cause degeneration of the ligaments and weakens them… you can get knee tendonitis from this if your not careful and overuse your knees a lot in sports! Good blood flow is a must.. having the knee supports on too tight or to loose is not good at all as it can either restrict blood flow making the ligaments more likely to get pulled or worse cause dvt, too loose and the knee support does not give any compression or proper support.I was a bit unsure what knee support to get exactly as I have seen a few, a few that are way too expensive and some that look as though they wont help me at all…… but after quite a lot of research and asking a number of my friends who have also got torn acl’s like me (it really is so common like you wouldn’t believe in football)…… I ended up settling with.. drum roll please…. http://nuovahealth.co.uk/product/open-patella-knee-support-brace Im still not fully recovered and havnt yet tried this knee support for playing sports in but since wearing it the support has really helped and made a huge noticeable difference and I no longer have a constant stringy pain in my knee when I bend my knee anymore!