Cross Education for ACL Rehab

The phenomenon of maintaining strength by training your UNINJURED limb when your INJURED limb is immobilised is called Cross Education.

And it potentially has a powerful effect on overall rehab outcome; especially ACLR rehab.

In a recent study by Harput et al (2018), a group of ACL injured patients were divided into 3 groups who all performed the same standardised ACL rehab.

However, one group did 3x extra sessions per week of concentric knee extensions on their uninjured leg for 2 months, another group did 3x extra sessions per week of eccentric knee extensions on their uninjured leg, and the other group did nothing extra (control group).

At 6 months post-op the authors found that the quads strength for the group that did extra sessions of concentric-only knee extensions was 28% greater compared to the control group, and the group that did extra sessions of eccentric-only knee extensions had 31% greater quad strength when compared to the control group!

Take home message: you might be injured, but you also have a healthy opposite limb that can and should be trained as normal - and in doing so, can benefit your currently injured limb in the months ahead

Learn more about ACL rehab by signing up to Learn.Physio online ACL Masterclasses by clicking on the link here