After September 4th earlier this month, America’s favorite sport is officially back. It started in dominant fashion for the Seahawks, the defending champions. However with the NFL season returning, most likely at least one of your team’s favorite players will be injured and most likely there will be an ACL tear. More and more football players are tearing their ACL, but they are recovering faster than ever. Has science allowed athletes to recover faster than an average person?

The Anterior Cruciate Ligament, or ACL, is one of the knees’ major ligaments. When the ACL is torn, the surgeons perform reconstruction surgery to repair the knee as best as possible. According to this website, surgeons replace the torn ligament with a healthy tendon to act as the new “ACL” because once a ligament is torn, it is beyond repair.

Looking at this from a football perspective, the number of torn ACLs have been high since 2009 and spiked in 2013 according to Peter King’s The MMQB site where he looked at statistics from the 2009 season onward. The total number of ACL tears during the entire season, preseason and postseason included, were 56 in 2009, 56 in 2010, 48 in 2011 and 56 in 2012. In 2013, numbers were also high, reaching 50 torn ACLs with 7 weeks to still compete. Why is it such a big deal to tear an ACL? Well besides the excruciating pain, the ACL provides stability for the knee. This is a nightmare for athletes, especially football players, who need their lower bodies to have full strength. No stability also means no explosion, which in turn makes the athlete expendable because of their lack of speed. However, the athletes who have torn their ACLs’ have come back just as strong, just as fast and recovered quicker than the average person.

My mom tore her ACL in both knees so I have some previous background knowledge of recovery time, which was usually about a year back when she tore her most recent one in the early 2000s. The official recovery time now for a patient is 8-12 months. How about for an NFL player? The average recovery time for NFL players is 6-9 months, 6 being the recommended minimum. So not too much of a difference, until the common sports fan spits out the fact that Adrian Peterson returned in 4 months and was incredible. Now more and more players are doing this (example: Chris Harris Jr. of the Denver Broncos). So are these fast recoveries due to science?

Already science has created anti-gravity treadmills and underwater treadmills to reduce stress when recovering from a knee injury, which is hugely important to keep inflammation at a minimal. Now scientists, according to this website, have created a pill to reduce muscle strength loss during recovery, which will allow athletes to return even quicker and in better condition physically. This pill is also designed for an average patient and not just an NFL athlete. I am all for this pill and anything else science creates to improve recoveries from injury.

Science has come a long way in the sports medicine and keeps rapidly advancing to improve the lives of athletes. Not only is this advancement in technology good for the athletes, because they won’t lose a career over an injury, but it’s also good for us fans who can see our favorite players back on the field sooner than ever before.

Sources:

http://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/acl-reconstruction/basics/definition/prc-20012625

http://mmqb.si.com/2013/12/04/nfl-injury-increase-2013/

http://kidshealth.org/parent/nutrition_center/exercise_safety/acl_injuries.html

http://www.mensfitness.com/training/pro-tips/5-most-devastating-sports-injuries

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/06/130613104418.htm

http://orthopedics.about.com/od/aclinjury/f/rehabtime.htm