Rehab Timeline After ACL Surgery

The rehab timeline after ACL surgery goes like this. Most athletes will go back to their sport around 9-12 months after the ACL surgery. Around 3 months you should be able to start jogging again. Around 4-6 months begin jumping and around 8-9 months begin sport-specific training.

In the past, athletes were allowed to return to sport as early as 6 months. However, it was quickly found that 6 months was too early. There were many athletes who re-tore their ACL and had to start all over again. Ain’t Nobody Got Time For That!

Why does ACL rehab take so long?

However, one thing that all of these methods have in common is needing time for the graft to attach, or to “take.” Usually we want to be very protective of the graft during the initial 3 months. Hence there are strict activity restrictions. We don’t want to take a chance on tearing the graft.

In that downtime, most athletes start to lose their game strength and conditioning.

Is there anything I can do to speed up the rehab?

In short…”No”. I think the best approach is learning about why the rehab and healing takes so long as well accepting this as a challenge to work on your patience and understanding of the process. Have you ever done gardening before? Stick with me here.

After surgery one of the most predominant things you will notice is the weakness in your thigh muscle, better known as the quadriceps, or just the quad. This large muscle is responsible for straightening your knee and keeping the knee from buckling on you. If you start pushing the quad muscle beyond what it’s capable of, the knee will buckle and it will more then likely tear the ACL out of its tunnel. If that happens, you will require surgery again and will have to start the whole process all over.

Knowledge is power and the more you can set realistic expectations the better experience you will have over the entire process.