Post-ACL Surgery - Good & Bad Exercises

[couldbaknee1]

Figured this might be a good thread for people to share their info & experiences as a reference for the people dealing with / coming back from ACL surgery.

I had a petellar tendon autograph 11 months ago, and here are some things I've heard/felt since then re: certain exercises:

Squats: orthopaedic surgeon said these were A-OK to go all out on by 5 months post-surgery. (That's when I asked - might have been sooner).

Extensions: Don't do 'em. (as per ortho & PT)

Curls: PT had me doing these from around a month or two post as part of physiotherapy. Ortho then told me (at 5 months post) not to do them. He said don't do any exercises where you're pushing weight against the leg from an angle as opposed to through the bottom of the foot.

Presses: Most leg press machines seem ok. I tried a horizontal leg press for a while, where you lie almost flat & push through pads over your shoulders - this seemed bad - knee would hurt a fair bit afterwards.

Deadlifts: These seem really bad - knee is totally screwed for a while after doing these.

Anyone else want to chip in?

[thebm]

I assume you were told not to do extensions only because you had a patellar graft? I had an allograft and extensions seem to be fine to me (didn't try til about 5 or 6 months post surgery) but i've never actually asked the doctor if they were ok specifically. I did ask him if it was ok to lift weights though and he didn't mention any specific exercises not to do

[terribletriad]

Extensions are ok if you are doing them for the stretch and for reps. No more than 10lbs. should be used as extensions put quite a load on the knee.

Going upstairs is ok, but downstairs puts about 7x the amount of force on your knee as walking. It would also not be fun to fall down the stairs should you tweak something.

[couldbaknee1]

I assume you were told not to do extensions only because you had a patellar graft? I had an allograft and extensions seem to be fine to me (didn't try til about 5 or 6 months post surgery) but i've never actually asked the doctor if they were ok specifically. I did ask him if it was ok to lift weights though and he didn't mention any specific exercises not to do

I'm not 100% sure what the reasoning was & whether the advice was specific to the patellar graft. Seemed to me tho that it was applicable to any acl surgery, as the concern was with the lateral load against the leg (as opposed to through it), thus putting excess pressure on the knee joint in the front to back direction that the acl protects against.