You're scarin me doc. Can you gun it to 88 and I'll stop myself from forcing shit
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The golden rule I follow is to make sure my knee is as close or closer to my chest than my foot. Guys get into trouble when either they reef their own foot towards their chest or their opponent does while they have their knee extended out. If your knee is up against your chest, you can't get hurt.
As for recovery, you need to stick to PT everyday. Single leg squats, balancing movements etc. Do them everyday and start them as soon as you can. Keep moving. I've popped both my knees over time, the knee which I started recovery movements asap and stuck with it everyday was fine in a month and the knee I slacked on took 4 months. (both were partial lcl tears)
Multiple pops when they happened. Unwalkable first couple days. Limpable for a week. Able to start PT and feeling slow recovery each day after about 5-7 days.
If you're still limping bad two weeks out, it's probably worse than a partial tear. But big red had a complete tear that he didn't figure out until 6 months to a year afterwards. So who knows. Everyone is a little different. I think that has a lot to do with which one you injured. Mine were both LCL.
Start working it man. I don't prescribe to the whole rest and ice mantra. It's always recovered faster for me when I was constantly working it throughout the day, staying active. I saw a huge difference between the one I rested on, iced and was lazy and the one I religiously worked hard on each day. I don't mean roll to soon though, just PT stuff. If it feels worse the next day then yea you worked it a bit too hard.
I've injured the LCL's in both knees a combined 10 times in the last 20 years, though incredibly never in rubber guard - it always happens in bizzarre situations like when I spin to take the back or in the truck or shooting for a low single. It always happens with a really loud click like somebody flopping onto an old couch. Anyway, my recovery timeline is almost exactly the same every time:
- It pops, doesn't hurt immediately, just feels kind of fuzzy.
- The next morning, I can't bend the leg and can't put weight on it without severe pain.
- 2 days out I can walk and slightly bend it
- 4 days out and I'm back to cycling and yoga
- 1 week out, I'm doing moderate-weight (~225 for me) squats and light rolling
- 2 weeks out, I'm doing everything 100% but not doing any risky moves with it
- a month out, I'm doing everything 100%
- 6 months out, I can no longer tell it's hurt
So basically, it doesn't stop me from training for very long; around 4 or 5 days. However, it still hurts and aches for about 6 months. In my experience, you don't want to just rest with it straight for more than the first day or two; after that, start moving on it.