UKC

Please can anyone tell me if they have had an injury to their ACL and still managed to carry on climbing with it? Thanks

In reply to Dipsterdesigns:

Hi Dipster.

I tore my ACL a long time ago (before I started climbing) and have never had a problem. That said, I never got anything done about it until recently where they said that because my muscle had grown and adapted to the lack of ACL and I have full rang of motion (ROM) and no stability issues they said it would be a bit pointless operating.

Just be careful jumping of boulders and generally try to build up your leg strength to avoid stability issues. If your injury is a recent one then you are probably going to be more prone to instability which could cause problems say at the top of a cliff or some other dangerous situation. Physically climbing though should be okay, but depends on your range of motion etc.

In reply to Dipsterdesigns:

How severe is it?

In reply to Dipsterdesigns:

Hi Dipsterdesigns,

I also tore my ACL before getting into climbing. I did have it repaired and once it was better I couldn't normally tell the difference compared to before. The good news is that over the past 20 years treatment for such injuries has got better and better.

The only time I notice is when wearing crampons. I have to be particularly careful as there is some residual meniscal damage which flares up if I stress my knee: easy to do after a tiring day, coming down a glacier. You then feel it for the next few days. It's also unpleasant to kneel down for I guess the same reasons.

Good luck with your recovery. While in the grand scheme of things my achievements are particularly modest, I'm very grateful that I've been able to climb in the wide range of places that I have:- so pay attention to what your doctors and physios say especially in the first few weeks if your injury has just happened and your ACL will not make more than a temporary dent in your climbing ambitions.

L

In reply to Dipsterdesigns:

I'm assuming that you're talking about an old injury, rather than trying to climb with a recent, still healing injury??

I ruptured my ACL about 4 years ago, had it repaired and have had no real problems with it. I had surgery on it to repair the ruptrure and a fair bit of physio / waiting before I got back climbing though. I ruptured in it January, had the op in March and I think was back climbing July/August or so, and hillwalking in May.

Only probs I've found is that sustained days cramponing / step kicking starts to hurt, as does carrying heavy loads for days on end. That said, I'm sure a lot of folk with no ACL history find the same!

If you mean can you keep on climbing while recovering - I'd err against it. I remember how unstable my knee was, and how easy it was to do more damage. Advice I got from the sports physio was that while in recovery climbing wasn't recommended due to the odd angles etc you load the knee at.

Once healed and the joint was back up to strength no probs at all though!

Cheers,

Stuart

Thanks for the info everyone I really appreciate you taking the time to reply and reading everyones experinces with their injuries and recovery journeys.

I only have a tear and not a full rupture and it is 4 weeks since I did it and have got all the swelling down and movement is improving with all the physio and cycling that I am doing.
Just the wait for an arthroscopy is 3 to 6 months and the thought of not climbing for this time is not that appealing as it will be totally out after the repair for a few months. I have accepted that winter climbing is totally out of bounds but want to keep my strength up and was just wondering if anyone out there did go to the wall to try and keep their training going whist waiting for it to be repaired. I have an articulated knee brace that will stop me from twisting and causing any instabilty. I know that I am probably grasping at straws here and climbing is out for this year but I just have a tiny hope that someone out there may have kept on doing something with their climbing through the injury no mans land? I am a self confessed climbing junkie and what can I say I need a fix Thanks

In reply to Dipsterdesigns:

I had ACL reconstruction about 4 years ago and similar to StuDoig was back climbing properly in about 4 months. I read a lot about training / climbing during recovery (including on UKC) and to be honest there's a lot of differing experiences / opinions. In the end I just let my body be the guide, sticking to fingerboard work for the first 2 months, then moving to progressively harder indoor climbing for the next 2. Interestingly I found fingerboard hangs with feet partly supported did wonders for my endurance and I'd never even thought about doing it before the injury.

I've met a number of people (as other posts) who opted to improve their knee musculataure to stabilise the knee, rather than have ACL surgery and they had all had no problems in the long term....it just takes a bit of hard work in the gym. You might think about doing this anyway to ensure the knee is as stable as it can be post-surgery. In my experience ACL reconstruction was not the solution I had hoped for. The knee is OK, but I've never felt it is as strong or stable as it was before injury.

Good luck but take it easy as you definitely don't want to rupture the ACL completely.

In reply to Dipsterdesigns:
How´s things going with your ACL and climbing? Im in the same shithole myself.

I havent really decided whether to go for the surgery or not. The medics seems to disagree so who am I to know? Scanning the threads here like a madman it looks like its more common with surgery in the UK than in Sweden.

Anyway hope your doing fine and very interested in hearing about if you´re climbing now pre-surgery.

In reply to Dipsterdesigns:

Slackline
http://minds.wisconsin.edu/bitstream/handle/1793/37462/MahaffeyBen2009.pdf?...

In reply to Dipsterdesigns:

I fully ruptured my ACL about 4 years ago, and had it surgically repaired about 6 months later. In the run up to the op, I did manage to climb a little, but was too concerned with knee stability to do much. I also had a knee brace and just did some easy top-roping at the climbing wall to keep me sane!

I was back sport climbing about 3 months after the op, but didn't really get back into bouldering for the best part of a year. Even now, I'm still careful about getting too high, and won't go for it on high hard moves. That said, I'm probably climbing better than ever and the knee feels good and stable, so I'd say that surgery was the right thing for me.

Main thing is to be careful post-op and not to push things too quickly because the last thing you want is a further set-back (my surgeon told me the story of one of his patients who, on the eve of his 6-month post-op review, managed to stumble over a pothole whilst out running and re-tore his ACL).

In reply to Dipsterdesigns:
In the other threads I found these links, pretty good actually

www.kneeguru.co.uk

http://www.orthoassociates.com/home/

In reply to Dipsterdesigns: I snapped my ACL (Skateboarding !) when I was 16 hurt for a bit, Crutches for about 2 months. then 6 months later I walked the Tour du Mont Blanc.

Went back to my consultant and he said If he hadn't cut me open and seen it with his own eyes then he'd never knew I had a problem, was discharged. Im 22 and have never had a problem since.