meniscus rehab

Approximately nine months ago I tore my meniscus. This happened when I just learned how to do basic front and backflips. I learned the backflip way before the front flip and even a cartwheel or roundoff, because I had a good vertical jump. Because the front flip is way harder to do from stance I learned to run into it and bounce off the gymnastics floor.

Unfortunately this bouncing/landing technique (I did) is not optimal if performed on grass. After a while of playing outside I began feeling some pain in the outside part of my left knee. I thought this wasn't something major but soon after it got the point that I couldn't walk anymore.

I decided to go to the hospital, and they did an MRI. They told me I had a torn meniscus and surgery might help. I didn't decide to do surgery after I heard some advice of some PT's. I decided to do a "rehab" program by doing mainly squats and deadlifts.

Now I can proudly say that these exercises helped me to rehab quite well. The only thing is I didn't jump for 9 months! I want to start jumping again but I don't want to mess up this time...

I love tumbling/jumping but I am afraid this will happen again. My question to you guys is: what type of exercises should I go after if I ever want to do this again? This time I don't want to make the same mistakes and want my knees to be bulletproof. Help is very much appreciated.

You should probably wait a while before getting into real tumbling. You'll need to ease in slowly, and continue doing high rep work for your knees.

There is no guarantee that your meniscus is going to be able to handle the tumbling without surgical intervention, but you should start off by jumping rope for short periods of time, and running. I'd do this for several months, and slowly get into small jumps. You'll need to take small steps forward every few months so that you have time to identify potential issues before a complete re-injury occurs.

http://www.ivysportsmed.com/for-patients/meniscal-injury-and-treatment.aspx

Give it time. My knee can take landings ok if not in tremendous volume but jump rope it utterly terrible on it. The injury will be individual in nature.

I would NOT start with jump rope at all. The volume is too high for now. Low volume, hops etc and see how it feels to you. 9 months is really not that long in the healing process, especially if you tore the lower circulation part. From the sounds of it my damage was more extensive then yours so my approach needed to be more conservative, just ease in.

Thanks for the info guys! Nic I am curious how your meniscus injury happened, and on what side of the knee? Over time or sudden? In my case it was not in one moment. Every time a felt the little pains I just gave it rest and continued tumbling a couple of days after...then one day I knew this was serious and walking after that became even a challenge. I am also surprised that it "healed" so quickly but my doctors were not that specific about the nature of the tear.

Medial and lateral so both, also had ACL damage and tore a 5mm chunk of posterior articulate cartilage out of my femur ( that part being what limits me the most as the articulating surface is not normal ).

I had ITB problems building up prior to the knee going. I did not know it was that bad until the next morning, but I had a lot of adrenaline at the time and tended to ignore pains back then.

Nic Branson said:

Give it time. My knee can take landings ok if not in tremendous volume but jump rope it utterly terrible on it. The injury will be individual in nature.

I would NOT start with jump rope at all. The volume is too high for now. Low volume, hops etc and see how it feels to you. 9 months is really not that long in the healing process, especially if you tore the lower circulation part. From the sounds of it my damage was more extensive then yours so my approach needed to be more conservative, just ease in.

Agreed. I don't like giving out specific numbers, because a physician really needs to be overseeing this rehab.

If I were, I would say not more than 10-15 seconds for a whole day at first. Even that may be too much, but I don't think so.  Hence the "short periods of time" bit. If one is jumping rope properly, there shouldn't be more impact (per leg) than jogging, but that's assuming good form: small hops, forefoot landing, no heel contact.

If OP isn't already proficient with a rope, just doing the low hops is probably better and safer.

If it were my knee, I'd do 5-10 jumps and that'd be it each day, and I'd add maybe 10 jumps every week. I'd probably take 10-15 weeks to build up to ~2 minutes of jumping rope, just for impact, and I'm not sure if I'd push my luck much past that... Menisci heal slowly.

OP may want to also look into infrared heating pads. They are expensive, but IR is good for joint healing.

- Your error was in not following correct progressions.  

As you have already learned the hard way, flipping elements should never be performed until after various cartwheels and handsprings have been mastered.  In addition to the technical training, following this progression allows your body to gradually adapt to the new demands being placed upon it.  The loads encountered during tumbling are much higher than most people anticipate; for example at the punch into a simple back flip out of a round off backhandspring 14x bodyweight is generated.

- Heal well and once you are healthy, be wise and start from the beginning.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer