9-12 WEEKS POST OP

During this phase of the rehab, the pace starts to pick up and you may progress much quicker than the previous months, but you must continue to be patient. Running predominantly kicks in around 3 months for an ACL patient who is moving at a good rate of recovery. You must still set small goals and focus on achieving these every week to give you the best chance to run and progress. Try not to look to far ahead to the running, rather focusing on these small goals that will keep you on track.

You should be able to comfortably ride a bike without scar tissue giving you too much pain or discomfort and by now will hopefully have a good deal of flexion as well as extension in your injured leg. Swimming and pool recovery is another great cross training and rehab exercise that you should continue to utilize. During this month you should put a high emphasis on getting some real strength back in your quad as well as focusing on other important muscle groups that will allow you to run well. Gluteal (hip) strength is very important too start firing up again as this will ensure that you don’t put high stress on other parts of your body such as your lower back and it will also help to ensure that your technique isn’t out too much. Glute bands walks shown in the video below are a great exercise for activation and strength.

Hamstring and calf exercises such as arabesques and calf raises shown in the videos below are also important to ensure you have strength around the knee and ankle joints moving forward.

I am a big believer in proprioception playing a massive role in ACL rehabilitations and therefore as much balance work, beam walking and coordination drills that you can do are invaluable to you in the long run and especially when you progress into off line movement later down the track. This month is your lead in to running and a common mistake is to start running without having done any running drills. In this period you should introduce a number of contact exercises that you feel comfortable with before attempting running – e.g. Skipping and drilling exercises shown in the video below.