Why Drake Johnson is susceptible to ACL tears

Submitted by MGoStrength on

So, I was bored this afternoon and decided to watch some games from last year and I made an observation, which some of you may be interested in, others maybe not.  But, Drake Johnson has obviously torn his ACL twice and I think I know why. 

 

Before I get into why Drake’s susceptible lets do a quick anatomy lesson.  Your ACL attaches to your femur (upper leg) and tibia (lower leg) and is one of the major ligaments (attaches bone to bone) that cross your knee.  Its role is to prevent your tibia from rotating independently of your femur.  To illustrate, cross your right middle finger over your index finger.  This is a model of how your ACL crosses over your knee joint.  Next wrap your left hand around your crossed fingers and externally rotate your right hand.  You’ll notice this force tightens your fingers.  If instead you internally rotate your right hand, your fingers loosen and come apart.  The former is a stable position for your knee, the latter an unstable one.  When your feet are pointed straight ahead of your body/torso and your knees are slightly outside of your feet you are creating a stable ACL.  When your feet open up it becomes difficult to track your knee outside unless your have incredible glute control and your tend to internally rotate or collapse your knee, collapse at the ankle, and lose the arch in your foot. 

 

It looks like Drake wears ankle supports, which is a possible indication that he’s been doing this for some time.  The arch you won’t see in a fully padded football player wearing cleats, but the knee you certainly can.  I believe this latter foot/knee position is exactly what I see Drake doing and why he is susceptible to ACL tears and he’s allowing his feet to externally rotate which is driving his knee inward and losing torque at his knee joint and making his ACL susceptible when under high speeds/loads.  But, this all starts by losing force through the hips.  Here’s a few pictures that illustrates what I mean.

 

Notice the knee internally rotated and inside the foot and the ankle collapsing

Again here, foot externally rotated and knee internally rotated.

Again, same thing

Drake uses this strategy over and over.  The vast majority of the time it is not an issue as he's obviously a high level athlete and a very strong guy.  However, when he uses this strategy under high loads or speeds the ACL becomes more susceptible and eventually as his past has show will tear under the pressure.  If he can learn the maintain torque through the hip, knee, ankle, and foot by pointing his toes straight ahead of him, not allowing his arch to collapse, and tracking his knee over or slightly outside of his foot, the will greatly reduce the chances of this happening.

LSAClassOf2000

July 15th, 2015 at 6:53 AM ^

...and to boot, the methods and techniques would probably be far more advanced than the totems and shamans currently being employed to keep AIRBHG at bay in Iowa City. Of course, the totems merely depict the injury history of various players in an effort to let AIRBHG know that they are humbled and mindful of his power, and the "shamans" merely lather spectators in Icy Hot to blunt the pain caused by AIRBHG's capricious smiting. 

A trainer or strength coach seems a lot simpler, come to think of it. 

BlueWolverine02

July 15th, 2015 at 12:07 AM ^

Somewhat along your lines... get stronger ankles and quit wearing ankle braces.  There is a direct correlation between twisted ankles and ACL tears.  It might seem counter intuitive to not wear ankle braces if you want to strengthen your ankles but if you don't expose the ankles to load they will never get stronger.  Do we want to address the problem or throw a bandage on it and hope for the best?  Ankle braces are nothing more then a bandage.

Michigan Eaglet

July 15th, 2015 at 12:13 AM ^

I stopped wearing ankle braces just before my senior year of high school after having many twisted/sparined ankles from various sports (basketball and football mainly) the previous 5 years. I haven't sprained either ankle since then and I think it's mostly attributable to working on strengthening my ankle instead of "protecting" it.

Magnus

July 15th, 2015 at 6:26 AM ^

Yep. I've had kids with ankle troubles and they come in with all kinds of ankle braces. Once they start strengthening their ankles, the problems basically go away. For some reason, a lot of strength work in athletics doesn't include work on balance/ankle strength.

MGoStrength

July 15th, 2015 at 12:27 AM ^

Wear them to compete, not to practice.  Remember that correlation does not equal causation.  They go hand in hand, but the ankle is not causing the knee problem.  It's a global problem of a faulty motor program that starts at the hips, which fails to create adaquate torque at the knee, which works its way down the kinetic chain. 

Amutnal

July 15th, 2015 at 6:44 AM ^

Orthopaedic literature will tell you that ankle braces reduce the incidence but not the severity of ankle sprains in football players. But there may be some empirical truth that some players use braces as a crutch and haven't maxed out their PT, which may obviate their need for the brace.

yzerman19

July 15th, 2015 at 8:21 AM ^

deep soft sand wind sprints are the key.  i am 45 and live on Sieata Key where we have deep soft sand.  about five years ago i started doing my running barefoot in the deep soft sand away from the water (where it gets packed down) and have had zero ankle problems since. before that my ankles always hurt from the step mill and treadmill.

 

leftrare

July 15th, 2015 at 11:27 AM ^

I have bad plantar fasciaitis and I believe it was triggered late last summer by a number of trips to the beach (New Buffalo).  Yzerman, you must have good strong arches, otherwise the instability of the sand surface puts a lot of stress on the fascia.  Just saying to flat-footed people like me, don't go barefooted on sand.

MGoStrength

July 15th, 2015 at 12:30 AM ^

I was actually just watching the Indiana game from last year and it jumped out at me immediately.  I probably was too into the outcome last year watching it live to pick up on it.  But, watching now, well after the fact, where I'm not tied to the outcome and can pay attention to some more intricate details, it was pretty obvious.

dcallen39

July 15th, 2015 at 12:15 AM ^

I love this write-up. Talking about ACL tears and potential causes gets me excited. 

I haven't reviewed any videos of Johnson's ACL tears, but weren't both of them related to contact? I understand your point of loading the ACL and putting it into a vulnerable position for rupture, but to my understanding most of that gets thrown out the window during a contact related ACL injury. 

I also question the ability to verify knee internal rotation with a 2D image. In our instrumentation class during PT school we assessed 2D vs 3D imaging for knee internal rotation during a step-down task. 2D imaging is not a valid assessment for knee internal rotation, and perspective error can give you all sorts of strange results. 

This ACL question is huge. I wish there were better methods of preventing the ruptures from happening. Even high quality exercise programs meant to prevent non-contact tears don't work for most people.

 

MGoStrength

July 15th, 2015 at 12:37 AM ^

That doesn't surprise me, but my hunch is that although 2D may not be valid on a single picture, I'd bet that changes when you take the same person and look at say 10 pictures. 

 

I noticed it watching a video and then just grabbed a few pictures to illustrate the point to the reader.  But, it wasn't hard to find them and it was harder to find images of him not doing this.  Also, knowing Drake's history of being a track guy, this doesn't surprise me.  He probably wouldn't be forced to deal with a faulty motor pattern during track where there's no contact, no change of direction, and to quick starting/stopping.

TyTrain32

July 15th, 2015 at 7:09 AM ^

I heard that dude Magnus is a punk too. Mentally weak. Only with him, dude doesnt have the guts or mental make up to cut it in the blogging world. Way to not jump to conclusions about someone you dont know and post it on the interwebs. NEXT!




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