Muscle Wasting Following Knee Surgery

Quads and hamstrings wasting following ACL injury and ACLR surgery can unfortunately be inevitable in the first few weeks following injury/surgery.

If this is what's happening in healthy subjects, it's fair to say things would be just as bad in knee injured athletes.

But there are things we can do to stop the rate of decay.

To maintain quads activity, I encourage daily (if not 2x per day) isometric knee extensions at 90deg and 60deg (5x30-45sec holds at each angle).

Depending on how much ROM the person has, I'll also encourage 0-90deg ROM knee extensions against gravity (yes; even in the first few post-op weeks as recent there's recent data showing more strain on ACL during over-ground walking).

I'll also try to maintain neural drive to the hamstrings with long hold isometrics at 30/60/90 degs - especially when working with ACLR hamstring grafts.

There's plenty of other options to maintain the quads and hamstrings during the first few post injury / post-op weeks - what are your favourites?

Let me know in the comments section below..

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