All-Star Acl Tears And Level 5?

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Nov 7, 2010
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We always hear about acl tears and how traumatic they are. Usually they happen to athletes that are level 5 or more advanced though. I've never heard of a level 2 cheerleader tearing there acl. Do you think it has anything to do with it? And, if you tore your acl, what level are you? Share your thoughts.
 
We always hear about acl tears and how traumatic they are. Usually they happen to athletes that are level 5 or more advanced though. I've never heard of a level 2 cheerleader tearing there acl. Do you think it has anything to do with it? And, if you tore your acl, what level are you? Share your thoughts.

I have a friend who had an EIGHT year old tear her ACL. She didn't even have her ROBHS yet. It was at gymnastics, so I have no idea what she was doing.

However, I can certainly see how someone could tear their ACL even doing a wonky back walkover, if their form was really bad and their feet landed crooked, etc.
 
an ACL tear or sprain can happen at any level. ACL tears and sprains mostly occur from tumbling. under rotating skills puts stress on the ACL and will begin to damage it slowly over time... under cutting handsprings (landing with your chest down and not snapping your legs), will put stress on the back of your ACL. the same thing with tucks and layouts. when twisting occurs, the ACL is more vulnerable to damage. Twisting into a landing makes the muscles and bones around the ACL tense up and compress, thus putting unwanted pressure onto the ACL. So basically, an ACL injury can happen at any level. even though they are more common in level 5! :)
 
Please realize ACL injuries are not specific to cheer ... any sport with twisting (soccer, basketball, etc) can lead to an ACL injury especially as your body is developing (for some reason we girls tend to have more ligament problems than men). Yes, I am speaking from experience (hurt mine in soccer, never did a BHS in my life!)
 
The higher level of skill you perform in any sport the more likely for injury. I would say most ACL injuries happen from under twisted fulls, but at the same time I see an equal number of ACL injuries on stupid stuff (round offs for example). I also think the larger you are the more likely you are to tear an ACL because you generally are stronger and can exert more force (the power of an 18 year old is a good bit more than an 8 year old). So the rate of occurrence is probably higher for older and higher level athletes.

But that is not to say younger kids or lower levels do not have them. At a competition last year we had a girl tera her ACL on our level 3 in a stunt in the warmup room. They were our center stunt and extremely good at it. Just something about that one time the flyer or the bases were slightly off and the pressure was put on her knee in the wrong way.
 
a friend of mine on my hs team tore her acl doing a layout because she landed funny with one knee a little bent and didnt finish the rotation. she was last pass and it stopped the whole routine and they had to compete again later in the competition without her. she just had surgery for it and should be able to cheer again in 9 months. i dont think level has anything to do with acl tears. i think that you can injure your acl performing something with incorrect technique or if you are trying a skill that your body is not prepared for yet. i just think acl tears can happen at any age regardless of level.
 
I tore my ACL on the prettiest layout I ever did, nothing wrong with my technique... when I came back my coach even told me that it was the nicest one he'd ever seen me do. I just so happened to have a partial tear (which I didn't know about) from soccer and it just kept getting worse with the added pressure of learning how to twist
 
one of my high school JV girls tore her ACL doing a pike jump. It was already partially torn, but it just gave out completely when she landed. She didn't land funny or anything.
 
I'm just a cheer mom now, but I had a torn ACL back in college and started out as an athletic training major. Mine was partially torn throwing javellin in a track meet in college (twisting injury), and then I tore it all the way landing from a jump shot in basketball (non-twisting). As others have mentioned though, there are a lot of factors that go into ACL tears. Some are caused by twisting injuries, but hyperextending the knee can also cause an ACL tear, like people mentioned from doing non-twisting skills (BHS, layout, etc.). Also, an individual's own physiology is a factor. The angle of the hip to the knee, in women especially, can make someone more prone to ACL tears. The sharper that angle, the smaller the space in the knee joint that the ACL passes through, thus making someone more prone to injuries. Also, women are more prone to ACL tears because of the higher levels of estrogen in our bodies, which tends to make ligaments and tendons softer (basically for the purpose of childbirth).
 
ACL tears can happen to all ages, my friend tore hers running laps before a soccer practice when she took a corner wrong. Another friend was marking a tick tock stunt sequence on the ground and tore it. Another was being lifted up to jump a fence (while heavily intoxicated).

After so many random occurrences, it's no wonder ACL tears are my biggest fear.
 
One thing is being said here that I hope everyone catches. There are complete acl tears that were proceeded by partial acl tears that either were not diagnosed, ignored, or improperly treated. Another relevant point then is we could be blaming a lot of acl tears on cheerleading when they were previously torn doing something else and not treated. While we all want our athletes to tough some things out, there is a major difference between being sore and being in pain. If you are not sure, get it checked out.
 
I tore both of mine by hyper extention. No twisting whatsoever. So I don't beleive it is a level 5 thing. I can still hear the 10 year old in the surgery room next to me talking about tearing it playing basketball because he landed a jump with his knees hyper extended.
 
I tore my ACL , MCL , LCL , and I destroyed my meniscus doing a punch front through double and it was a perfect double.. my knee just happened to keep going and dislocated then tore alll that.. but , I have witnessed a girl tear her ACL doing a R/O tuck.. it just depends with some ppl..
 
It has nothing to do with level. Do we all remember the guy from worlds that did the fierce move step to the front before his basket and tore his knee? It can happen to anyone for any reason. My first time was due to landing toe backs with straight knees. My coaches got onto me all the time for landing with locked knees, it was bad technique that I eventually paid for. The second time a flyer came down right on top of me in a tuck basket and the force / weight blew my knee the second I caught her. While both times were level 5 & level 6 skills, the injury had nothing to do with the level I was on. I think one of the more common factors if you ask people will be fatigue, but sometimes its just bad luck!
 
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