ACL Prehab

Redfern Physiotherapy & Sports Medicine • February 21, 2023

Injuring your ACL can be overwhelming, often you will be deliberating whether or not to get surgery while coming to terms with the long rehab process ahead. This blog will shed a bit of light on something that everyone should be doing after sustaining an ACL injury; Prehab. 


What is ACL Prehab?


ACL Prehab is what is done between tearing your ACL and having surgery/performing rehab. It is the term used for the exercises and training that needs to be performed after sustaining an ACL injury and should be performed even if you are considering not having surgery. 


What does ACL Prehab involve? 


Prehab involves a block of supervised exercise sessions with a focus on lower body strengthening (particularly the quadriceps and hamstrings), knee mobility and stability/motor control. The timeframes and specific types of exercise will vary between different people, but the goal of prehab remains the same; maximise the chance of returning to your pre-injury level of activity and staying there. 


Why is Prehab so important?


Performing a 5-week block of prehab training has been shown to increase the chance of returning to your pre-injury level of sport following an ACL replacement, it has also been shown to significantly improve knee function after ACL injury, regardless of whether you decide to have surgery or not (Eitzen et al, 2010). 


Prehab also provides a great opportunity to perform some strength and hop testing, which will be used later in rehab. This testing will provide a good comparison for leg strength and function prior to returning to sport, doing this has been shown to help reduce the risk of reinjury by up to 75% (Capin et al, 2019). 


The take home message.


A short block of Prehab has been shown to have a great impact on knee function after ACL injury and will increase the chances of having a good recovery and returning to your chosen sport or activity, regardless of whether or not you require surgery. Everyone who suffers an ACL injury should perform some amount of Prehab; if you have recently injured your ACL and would like to have a chat about Prehab, then get in touch….

A group of people are stretching their legs in a park.

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