Sporting Knee Injury

The knee is the largest joint in the body which provides stability and flexibility to our body. Our knee is made up of several parts like bones, cartilage, muscles, ligaments and tendons. So when we talk about knee injury it can be stress or damage to any of these parts.

A sporting knee injury can cause:

• ACL tear
• PCL Tear
• MCL and LCL tear
• Meniscus tear
• Cartilage damage

A common sporting knee injury is an ACL tear which occurs due to high impact sporting events or a lot of twisting and turning. An ACL occurs when all the force is applied on the knee while the foot is placed firmly on the ground. There can be a loud cracking sound at the time of the accident. The knee can swell and pain after the injury happens.

The PCL injury is less frequent than ACL injury. PCL injury can happen when a person falls with the knee bent or when there is direct impact on the front side of the knee such as those which occur in soccer or football. The symptoms of PCL injury generally include pain in the knee with swelling and chronic instability.

MCL (inside) and LCL (outside) are the two ligaments which provide stability and support to the knee. MCL is more open to injuries than LCL as when a force is applied to the outer side of the knee the ligaments from inside stretches and are damaged. The symptoms of these injuries include pain, stiffness, and swelling and even sometimes the knee may feel unsteady and locked.

Meniscus tear injury occurs usually when a player while playing a game applies twist to upper part of the leg while placing his foot firmly on the ground. Meniscus tear can cause pain with locked or a weak knee. A tough and flexible tissue that is found throughout the body is known as cartilage. Cartilage prevents damage to the bones by reducing friction acting as a shock absorber. The disadvantage of cartilage tissue is that it does not have blood supplies which can repair the damage of the tissue. So once it gets damaged it will cause joint pains, swelling, stiffness and it cannot be repaired easily.

There are many conservative treatment and surgical options for the treatment of sporting knee injury but to avoid injuries one should:

• Players should always take there time to warm up before playing.
• Don’t take intervals, exercise daily for at least 30 minutes so that knees get flexible.
• Take lessons from the instructor and have good equipments.

Use the rule of 10%, when working on a new exercise increase 10% daily according to your comfort ability level.