ACL Quesionare PART II/ The Art of Destruction

First off sorry for the spelling error in the title. Forgot to check that


Seeing as how many knees have been destroyed by the wake it got me thinking.

What do you think contributes to the high number of blown knees? Possibly even go a step further and elaborate on what did it in for you.


For me. .......I hit the D-up Same as usual. Sweet take off, perfect air. landed solid out in the flats and like 3sec's after landing sharp pain. Felt like I just jammed/tweaked it a bit. Just iced it and sat out on the boat for like 3 more hours and then went to step off the boat onto the doc and BLAAAMO my knee buckled. Like I said landed fine out in the flats(so I thought). My Dr seems to think I didn't have enough forward momentum so my knee took all the force. Down went the ACL/MCL/Meniscus and PCL. Figure if you're gonna do one you mine as well do them all

I really don't have an answer to what I think contributes, but if I had to guess ..... maybe not stretching before a set good enough


Also this is more of a poll. How many of you who were issued CTI's or DonJoys ditched the brace? OR are most of you rocking the brace long term.

Me I think I am going long term withe the CTI 2



(Message edited by xstarrider on February 01, 2009)

water is slippery

Swatguy-I had surgery in Nov 07 and my doctor told me that an ACL doesn't tear all at once. He said is stretches over time and then eventually snaps. In wakeboading alot of it has to do with not keeping your leg muscles strong and then also landing straight legged. I am using Donjoy braces on both knees and keeping them for the long haul. I picked those because of the knee guarantee warranty they have. Hopefully that will help you out.

I did mine on a normal straight air into the flats. Clean take off and stomped the landing, maybe landed a little front foot heavy, but not much. As soon as my board impacted the water my left knee (I was riding left foot forward) buckled and dislocated. As I was spotting my landing I actually watched my knee go out. Everything above my knee went left and everything below my knee shifted right.

As for the knee brace, I got a CTI pro sport and love it. I am only six months out of my surgery and have been using it for snowboarding. The plan is to wear for everything up until a year out of surgery. After that, most likely I will only wear it for wakeboarding. Don't see me self ever wakeboarding without it again.

I think the #1 reason the percentage is so high with wakeboarding is due to riders weak leg muscles. For most of us it is a seasonal sport, and we are not training enough in the off season to keep our legs in wakeboard shape. I know that my legs now are stronger than ever, because of all of the work in rehab. Who knows, but my ACL tear may not have happened if my legs were in better shape at the time.

Well mine is lame. Here is the set up. Got a new board at the end of last year. Went out and rode with my Watson for one ride. Then had to hang it up for the winter. Over the process of the winter my dad upgraded and purchased a new 22ve Tige fully loaded. Which is an upgrade from having an 03 boat with no ballast or sacs. So its January and i like to stay active i am in college and no longer compete in competitive sports. I do enjoy just about all sports and like to get out and play whenever i can so i have a break from just weightroom and running around campus. One evening i got invited to play basketball in our legit gym that our team actually plays in instead of the auxillary gym. So im pumped that were playing in the big gym and about 1 min into the game i jump to block a shot and land staight down, not on anyones foot or anything. I felt a pop and collapsed to the ground( First thought to my mind: Am I going to be able to wakeboard this summer). Turns out I tore my acl and my medial and latteral meniscus. I am a week out and atteninding class for the first time today. Rehab is already going a little slower than i would like , and had a scare this weekend with a possible infection luming around the fever i was running. I will miss Wake the Desert but I am hopefull to be back riding and get some practice ( behind my new boat) by last weekend in July to make it to the last tourny of the year, RIPTANK. That depends if i have to confidence to start throwing some backrolls and raleys by then.

I am looking to get a CTI i dont know which one yet but i plan to always wakeboard with it and get rid of it after while doing other stuff.

Not looking to get back on the basketball court anytime soon.

I was doing a W2W 180. I was not going big at all. I guess I landed a bit front foot heavy and it "dislocated" I was 23.

I had previously sprained my knee pretty bad (in high school when i was 18 playing basketball). after that initial injury my knee would sprain at least twice a year.

I guess this was the straw that broke the camels back.

I had a pattela graft 3 years ago and haven't injured it yet, i'm 26. This is mostly due to the HUGE mental block I have whenever I strap on a wakeboard.

When I hurt it I was starting to get a fairly decent bag of tricks, since I hurt it i've really struggled with trying anything new even though it feels stronger than ever.

I use a donjoy defiance brace fulltime. I want to ditch it because it's such a PITA but my wife doesn't want me to. (mostly because she doesn't want to take care of me again).

I hear ya trapper. The mental part is the toughest part for me. I have a job which needs me to be able to funciton at the top of my game physically. For me just wrecking on a standard trick that I do 100 times has got me kind of babying it.

I went riding at end of the season last year with w 2 of my friends. It was one of those late 80+ degree days. Both him and his wife were trying some new tricks and we were having grand ol time cheering and pushing each other. Him and his wife finally told me to "sack" up. I did and riding was sweet. Took a lot though to push me they stuck it to me about 3 other times I was out with them. Every other time I just kept it stock thil then. I can honestly say that last run of the year should have been one of my first. I owe them a ton for getting me to get out of the funk of ":keeping it stock"

Bunch of factors may (not necessarily) have contributed to mine. You get plenty of time to think about it when you are laid up.

First, and without a doubt in my mind most importantly, for about 5 months before I blew up (ACL/meniscus) I had lapsed on keeping my leg muscles in shape, no squats, lunges, presses etc, so I certainly had weaker quads and hamstrings than early in the season (I hit the gym between snowboard and wakeboard season every spring, injury happened in October, and I don't believe wakeboarding keeps your legs in shape)

Second, and maybe even more importantly, I didn't warm up before I rode, and the water was 60 degrees, no wetsuit.

Third, the night before was a tough one if you know what I mean, so I wasn't on it.

Fourth, I wasn't feeling the wake that day, it was super choppy, but we were going by a boat of people I knew so I decided to throw a banger 180 deep into the flats. I went off axis the second I hit the wake and landed "flat" in the sense that all my momentum stopped the second I hit the water. I never spotted the landing.

I don't wear a brace, never have, and had a number of long conversations with the doc about it. Basically, the surgery went as well as one could have, I used my patella, and I agreed to kill it at rehab. Doc felt my stability and strength were good enough that a brace would do me only harm. I got a second opinion, and his suggestion was confirmed. I'm incredibly thankful for this, I was dreading a life where I came to rely on a brace. Since the surgery (Dec 2006) I've wakeboarded better than before, skied 7 days straight in colorado, hit a 40 foot gap jump on skis, landed a 25 foot table top jump 20 feet too long into the flats onto ice on skis (stomped it, hurt my back, no knee pain. At this precise moment I knew my surgery was a 10000% success, I had about 2 seconds in the air to decide how I was going to rehab both knees at once), played soccer all summer, played basketball, and other lateral movement sports with no brace and no pain.

I have never torn my ACL, but I know a decent amount about the mechanism of the injury. ACL tears are typically caused by twisting the knee with the foot planted, or from hyperextension of the knee. In wakeboarding, our feet are always planted to the board, which is one of the contributing factors. The knee (and hip) has to take most of the rotational force to make up for the ankle being planted. Then we have this big boat pulling on us through the rope/handle, trying to pull us back toward it, causing even more rotational force as we try to pull out to the side of the boat into the flats. Any of these rotational forces pulling just the right way on the knee can cause the ACL to snap.
Our knees are actually a very weak joint, because it is held together only by ligaments and tendons from the muscle. There is no boney stability, so the ligs and tendons are very prone to injury.
This is one reason I would suggest not cinching bindings down really tight. It just keeps the foot planted during a fall, and the board creates a lever arm, so any twisting force has to be taken up somewhere, usually in the form of a fracture or ligament injury. As much as a pain as it is, if the foot comes out of the binding on a bad fall, there is usually much less risk of injury.
The ACL prevents the tibia from moving forward from the knee joint. When we lean back to cut out heelside, alot of our weight is put on the quads to keep our knees bent at an optimal angle, while pushing our edge into the water. When the quads contract they actually pull the tibia forward because of the attachment of the quad tendon on the tibia just below the knee. The ACL has to counteract this movement to keep the knee joint intact. The hamstrings also help the ACL to pull the tibia back because of where their tendons attach. So when strengthing the legs, most people want to concentrate on the quads, but the hamstrings are also a really important muscle to strengthen, especially for those who have had ACL tears, or want to prevent them.
So there is my little nerdy blurb on the subject. Hope everyone's ACLs stay safe out there

Sounds very logical, thanks for the insight Irene. Do you have a medical background? I've never thought of trying to loosen my bindings a little bit, I usually put them on as tight as I can.

For my knee it was a dislocation. I had been riding a alot in the spring and early summer. We put our house on the market, so I had been away from much activity for a month or so. Went to hang at an event and just help run the tourney if needed. I decided to kill some time and demo a lf board. I rode a lf board with some open toe bindings which seemed pretty soft compared to the ones I was riding. I was riding behind a friends 205v, and I usually ride behind a vlx. I was having a hard time going w2w, and I dont like to land in the flats in order to "extend my career". I was defintely out of shape, on a new setup, and behind a boat I wasnt familiar with. I landed a w2w in the pocket just after the lip. I landed stiff legged, and there wasnt a lot of pain. However I knew something wasnt straight. When I took off the binding I felt my knee pop back in. Kind of a sickening feeling. Luckily for me the IL river is brown and I couldn't see the dislocation. I know when I tried to bear weight back in the boat, it started to dislocate again.

I dont think my mental game will be riding again. It will be the first couple w2w's, I know its not the board/bindings, but I know I wont ride that lf gear anytime soon, and I dont see myself getting behind my friends 205v anytime soon. It was completely my fault 100% for various reasons, but the mental hangups are crazy.

mine was caused by my own stupid fault. I made a bad decision with a huge risk at stake. If only I could take back those few seconds!

It was new years day, I drank the night before, but not much. I still felt "off" and their were weird signs that I chose to ignore. I was snowboarding at my home mountain and they opened the "big kids" park for the first time this season. I was so excited, In it is my favorite jump of all time. A 50 foot+ cheese wedge. I checked it out first. Thought it looked a little steep and gave hitting it that day a HUGE second thought. Not a good sign! I figured it would be scary no matter how long I waited, so instead of listening to my brain saying not too go for it, I did, and almost made it. Went a little too slow and came up about a foot short right on the deck. I landed on my feet in a deep squat, but the impact from dropping out of the sky was too much. I felt it go out but there was little pain. I thought I might be okay, but the MRI said different.

I'm glad I did it snowboarding and not wakeboarding.I can and will probably avoid large jumps from now on!

I had a couple of hungover/early morning raley attempts that went really wrong one day. I ended up twisting in the air and they way I landed put a lot of torque on my knee. I knew something was wrong with my knee after that but a couple of days later it felt pretty good. I play a lot of soccer, and after the bad falls my knee would really hurt when I stopped abruptly. I made it through a few games, but at then end of a game I planted and changed directions quickly. There was an audible pop and a lot of pain. I knew my acl was gone after that. Wakeboarding and soccer seem to result in a good amount of acl injuries. I think I was pretty lucky to make it as long as I did without tearing it.

Thanks Brett, I am a Physical Therapist, and was an Athletic Trainer, so they teach us alot about the mechanism of injury, and ACL injuries are one of the most common lately.

My injury was not an ACL, but season-ending nonetheless. I had just started my session with a couple of w2w jumps nothing big. I cut in heelside for a w2w 180 landed a bit front foot forward and felt the pop. It was not my knee, it was my ankle. I struggled to get the binding off, requiring the assistance from my brother. I thought it was a bad sprain, so I put off going to the doctor for a couple of days. Swelling never subsided so I went and saw an ortho. surgeon. Turns out I had a tib-fib break that required surgery. I received a plate and screws in the tibula and 2 screws in the fibula and was on crutches from July 07 to Oct 07. It was a tough recovery, but I was able to ride last summer.

One thing that I feel contributed to this injury was my bindings. I had just purchased a 143 Covin and decided to go with the Cell bindings. I chose size 11 as that is my shoe size. The bindings felt great in the shop, but felt loose when I got to the water. I got used to the looser fit through the season, but this allowed my ankle to roll when I took the infamous spill.

Last season I switched the Cells for some Zeuses. The tighter fit gave me more confidence. And I rode incident free the whole summer. Even had the chance to ride with Keith Lyman back in June. I am still hesitant about going real big and its kind of frustrating. I take an aggressive cut, but I instinctively back down going through the wake.

My ankle gives me no problems, so I am shooting for really trying to progress my riding this summer. Sorry about the rant, just thought I would chime in.