I did my ACL and meniscus doing kiteloops in strong wind. I have had surgery 4 weeks ago and recovery is going well. But i am very reluctant to go hard out there when i return from injury. Has anyone else done this injury and have you found the confidence to go big again??

I used to think i was invincible and was not afraid to throw a loop at 30 feet in 25knt + winds. But im not sure i want to go back to my riding style because im scared of popping my knee again. This sucks cos i love the feeling of being whipped through the air and i live for it.

I know Youri came back from 2 knee recos but it has been a tough few months since i did it in DEC 2011. So anyone who feels my pain and has been through an ACL reco and has returned to the sport we live for, tell me your story and give me some confidence to someday have the old spirit back in me and just go for it! But for now its 8 more months of physio and i will see the next season.

Happy kiting and enjoy every moment cos i would give anything right now to get that feeling back

Hi Dude,

I busted my Knee Pretty bad in 2007 in SA. I blew my meniscus and perforated the other ligaments and tore my ACL.

It took me a long time to get my confidence back even though my recovery went well and I was back on the water after about 6 months of intensive rehabilitation.

Especially when it came to powered handle passes. It took me almost 2 years to land a blind judge again. My brain just kept getting in the way. Fear can be crippling. I went back to riding old school more as I had no problems with hot landings doing that. Eventually I got tired of being afraid and just went for it one session and after landing the trick again after 2 years felt sooooo good. After that most of the fear was gone and my confidence was back.

I think ( in hindsight) the best thing you can do is talk to someone about your fear issues. There are sport psychologists who's job it is to get broken people like us back up. I should have done that from the beginning.

Another piece of advice I have is that you make sure that the docs really check that all the muscles in your leg are really ok. When I injured my knee i also tore one of the muscle strings in my quad. Due to the atrophy of the whole quad muscle the docs did not catch it. I had pretty bad pain all the time in my left quad after the injury, but did not think it was a separate problem. I only noticed as I was training up my muscles again, that one part of my quad was mot developing. It looks like a dent in my left quad now. They could not do anything about that anymore, and the other muscle strings had developed to compensate, but I have a bit of a back problem now as my left leg is slightly out of balance.

I hope you recover quickly and that you will be ripping it up in no time.

Yuri is a great example of what can be achieved when you work hard to recover.

Do your exercises every day! and listen to you physiotherapist !

--
Gunnar

Normally they prescribe a knee brace later on before you start doing sports, after some of the swelling and muscle loss is through. The brace will give you enormous amounts of confidence to do things and help you get over the mental hurdle of doing things at least before your knee feels full strength. Still no guarantees though even with a brace. You will likely temper the conditions in which you do kiteloops which I believe happens eventually anyway one way or another.(Either concern for an injury or an actual injury) So to answer your original question you will go "big" although you will probably "temper" when you do it and most likely be when the water is flatter for the landing, as the deceleration in the waves the forces can be too great!

J

I had snapped my ACL playing soccer but I was playing soccer and kitesurfing within 6 mths. I was the poster child of physical therapy, I did everything the therapist ask me to do and it paid off. I still continue to work my legs. My knees sometimes swell up a little after a session but it is fine the next day. I do jumps, back rolls, forward rolls, rides waves, but I didn't do loops before and I probably won't start since I'm 48 years old. I don't wear a brace, my surgeon said it would not really help, the best thing to do is to strength the muscles around your knees. But in soccer I still do a lot of latter movement and it fine. As gunner wrote, it will mainly be psychological. I wish you a healthy and speedy recovery.

I didn't do my ACL, but, but I broke my Fibula in 2 landing a jump around 10 years ago. Similar sort of injury in recover period; leg in a cast for 6 weeks, leg limp & powerless for another 6, did physical therapy & slowly things came back. For months didn't have much power on my port tack (the side of the broken leg) as my strength was much less than that of my right. Not comparing it to an ACL but it is a similar injury.

I was 28 at the time I was injured. I had no wife, no mortgage, no dog, worked freelance & my h-insurance was something like $40 a month. It ended up costing me about $3k before it was all said & done AND I couldn't work for 3 months because my job was a physical one. My girlfriend took care of me.

Fast forward to today. I have a wife (who cared for me when I broke my leg 10 years ago). I have a mortgage. I have contracts thru the end of this year that require me to be able to walk around & be a little bit physical. I won't get into the h-insurance debate but you can guess how much that costs & would set me back now. What would happen if I was seriously hurt again is; I would have to forfeit most of my work during the first half of 2012, I wouldn't have a means to pay my mortgage & I would be screwed because I couldn't work.

So to sum it all up. Do I huck big jumps now? Yes. Am I very careful? Hell yes. I am trying kiteloops & other stuff that I could get slammed on? No way. I'm around 40 & getting my ACL, Fibula or anything like that screwed up scares me more than any other aspect of kiting. Possibly not what you want to hear but it's the truth. Good luck.

JD

Sorry to hear your unfortunate news. I have had 3 knee surgeries - i used to wakeboard a lot and messed things up pretty good. The good news is that knees recovery well, the bad news is that you probably will likely need further knee surgery because of you physiological build. meaning if you continue to ride you will likely fo more damage. This has not stopped me, but i have changed the way i ride. BTW. the knee braces suck and they often fall off in the water. Hope you have a speedy recovery.