Post-ACL Confidence

AlaskaDogfartYesterday I skied for the first time after my ACL surgery. All the muscle memory is still there, but I have no confidence in my knee/leg. How do I improve my confidence?

Slowly build your way up, like dont hit the biggest rail in the park or whatever. Youll get it back. Also deep barbell squats with good form are great for acl/pcl stuff search up @squatuniversity on youtube or tiktok.

2 time acl fucker-upper here, honestly man the best thing you can do is start lifting if thats not something you already actively do, even if it's just for a couple months before lifts open. A huge part of this is muscle integration. What a lot of people don't realize is that the big strength gains you see during the first couple months of real training is actually due to your muscles firing more efficiently and neurologically integrating more muscle fibers during a contraction, not because your gaining mass. As a result you're brain will subconsciously gain more trust your leg because it can contract your leg muscles more efficiently. You'll also get a conscious confidence boost bc as you start lifting heavier you'll realize more and more that your bad leg can handle the same load as your good one and eventually you won't think about it. Not saying become a gym rat, but a couple sessions per week can help a lot. Other than that just keep skiing and it'll come back.

Started going about 2 months ago and it is already paying off massively. Seeing way less inflammation after stuff like running nordork etc.

Skizbflexin2 time acl fucker-upper here, honestly man the best thing you can do is start lifting if thats not something you already actively do, even if it's just for a couple months before lifts open. A huge part of this is muscle integration. What a lot of people don't realize is that the big strength gains you see during the first couple months of real training is actually due to your muscles firing more efficiently and neurologically integrating more muscle fibers during a contraction, not because your gaining mass. As a result you're brain will subconsciously gain more trust your leg because it can contract your leg muscles more efficiently. You'll also get a conscious confidence boost bc as you start lifting heavier you'll realize more and more that your bad leg can handle the same load as your good one and eventually you won't think about it. Not saying become a gym rat, but a couple sessions per week can help a lot. Other than that just keep skiing and it'll come back.

Don’t rush it, but build up slowly. When you start to go, remember that you need to dial it back. It’s much better to work your way into it sloooooowwwww than to push to fast and have a setback. When the process tests your patience, you’ll have to remind yourself to keep the faith. You’ll feel impatient at times—don’t let it get you anxious. You’ll get there.

I've busted my knee twice in the last 3 seasons. The first injury was a dislocated patella, shredded all the cartilage in my knee and chipped my femur. The second injury was last season where I fractured my tibial plateau, sprained my acl and chipped my femur some more. I was lucky enough to get back on skis 2 months later after the second knee fuckery, and man lemme tell you, its very tough getting back into it and having confidence. What worked well for me was just skiing with the homies and having a fun time even tho I couldn't do much. took me about 3 months total to get back to max skiing ability, and to be honest after my first backflip after all the knee problems I felt like I was back. Tbh I think its about the little victories that build ur confidence back up. hope this helps brother, have a great season getting back into it.

**This post was edited on Nov 30th 2021 at 1:59:50pm

**This post was edited on Nov 30th 2021 at 2:00:50pm

Get in the gym, stay in the gym, take it slow on your skis, but ski a lot. On top of a solid gym split, you'll need to ski quite a bit before the confidence starts coming back. The only way to rebuild ALL of the ski-specific strength/flexibility you once had is to... ski. Even though you should ski a lot, you should still take it extremely slow. No need to try a trick/terrain that could cause a setback in your recovery before you're ready for it.

I looked at it like I had to relearn how to ski park. Day 1 was skiing groomers and hitting tiny boxes, day 2 tiny rails, and so on. By the end of the season I had relearned most of my rail tricks, and on the last few days of my year I finally learned some new stuff. Didn't progress on jumps at all, that will hopefully start back up this year.

While it might suck to not go all out this year, you gotta keep the bigger picture in mind. Avoiding a reinjury is 1000x more important that shredding hard this season, and by avoiding a reinjury/allowing your knee more time to heal, you'll naturally become more confident. Get through this season healthy, get another offseason of strengthening, and you should be set!

I tore my ACL and it was one of the hardest rehabs, I was prepared for the gym rehab being tough but I wasn't at all prepared for how long it would take to even after I was able to ski again. My biggest piece of advice on gaining confidence is not to rush it. It is easy to think that because you are cleared to ski that you are 100% but truth is that it is not always the case. Take the time to connect to how your knee is feeling and if it is not feeling good then take it easy, continue rehab and try again. Mine took till almost the year point before i started to ski without pain. Now it has been almost 7 years later and I don't have any issues with my knees and hardly remeber that I had an ACL surgery. So it will get better it just is a pain... Hang in there and I know it may not be what you want to hear but I hope this helps!

Get a custom medical knee brace if you don't already have one. Like a DonJoy or CTI. Insurance should at least partly cover it if you go through your provider.