Description
"Just follow the protocol. You'll be fine."
That's what I was told in 2004...
eighteen years old, fresh off ACL Reconstruction surgery, handed a plan by people I trusted completely.
Back then, "doing your research" meant maybe a magazine article.
YouTube barely existed. You followed the protocol because the protocol was the authority.
So I followed it. Exactly as written.
When it didn't go the way it was supposed to, nothing changed.
The plan stayed the plan.
I just gritted my teeth and got through it...
assuming that was rehab, that struggling was the point, and the program couldn't be wrong, only me.
Twenty-five years later, here's what I'd change if I could go back
I'd know hurt doesn't mean harm.
I spent the early weeks scared to push, when pushing through some discomfort was exactly what I needed.
I'd spend real time rebuilding my tendons instead of avoiding loading them.
My rehab was long, but it was underloaded...and the "result" was sever, debilitating, patellar tendinopathy in both knees the moment I got back to lacrosse.
I'd have left PT at month 2. Honestly...
Months 3 -6 were straight leg raises and physio ball squats.
That time should have gone to a strength coach who understood loading, not isolated, low-demand exercises.
This is exactly why yielding isometrics are a non-negotiable part of how I program tendon and even post op rehab now.
Slow, sustained loading does something straight leg raises never will...
it gives the tissue a reason to adapt.
If you're a parent of an athlete in rehab right now, ask the question I never thought to ask...
Is this program asking my kid's tissue to adapt, or just asking them to wait it out?
What would you go back and change about your own rehab, if you knew then what you know now?
Drop it below... I read every one.
The Movement Underground | Seaford, NY