Whether you injure your ACL playing sports or from a fall at work, you need to know all you can about to make the best decisions about your injury. This short guide will hopefully help you.

Torn ACL: 4 Things You Should Know

When it comes to sports injuries, an ACL tear can be one of the worst one injury you can get to your knee. But it really depends on the severity. Here are four quick facts you should know about a torn ACL that can help you determine such questions as “How bad is the injury?”

7 Self-Administring Tests to Know If You’ve Injured Your ACL

Anterior cruciate ligament. ACL for short. It’s the ligament that runs up from your shin bone and passes through the middle of the knee, attaching itself to the bony part of the femur, or thigh bone. It’s not very big. Less than an inch and a half long and half an inch wide.

Can You Return to Top Performance After ACL Surgery?

The world of sports is full of miracles. This so-called miracle usually involves the underdog upsetting the favorite in an improbable comeback, but most of the time when the word “miracle” is used to describe some aspect of sports, it’s sensational, exaggerated and flat-out overblown until now.

Football Players: How to Prevent ACL Injuries

A torn ACL (Anterior Cruciate Ligament) is arguably the worst injury a football player could suffer. It usually ends the player’s season and can even put their careers in jeopardy.  Even after surgery, the chances are slim that a player can reach prior levels of performance.

What Hockey Players Should Know about ACL Tears

Hockey is not as brutal on the body as football, where full contact is possible on every down, but due to the high-speed collisions on a rink, a hockey player can find himself suffering from a serious knee injury like an ACL tear.

What Is a Successful ACL Reconstruction Surgery?

Minnesota Vikings Pro Bowl running back Adrian Peterson suffered a season-ending injury in his game with the Washington Redskins last Saturday. Fortunately for him and the Vikings, who weren’t in playoff contention to begin with, there is only one game left in the season.

Dr. Rick Lehman is a distinguished orthopedic surgeon in St. Louis, Missouri and an articular cartilage reconstruction pioneer. He owns U. S. Sports Medicine in Kirkwood, MO, and LehmanHealth. Learn more about Dr. Rick.

Dr. Lehman – Cracking Your Knuckles

Is Yoga bad for you? This centuries old practice is coming under fire. Some critics say it’s dangerous and could cause injuries. Orthopedic Surgeion Dr. Richard Lehman from the U.S. Center for Sports Medicine in Kirkwood talks about the growing controversy.

The New England Patriots have over 15 players who are probable or doubtful. I’ll share who those are in a minute because they don’t matter as nearly as much as the injury to Rob Grankowski.

In the AFC match up against the Ravens he tweaked his ankle, suffering the same injury that Sam Bradford suffered in the regular season: high ankle sprain.

If you remember, Sam was out for about four weeks, tried to come back in for two, played miserably and then sat out for the rest of the season. Grankowski is expected to play, but you have to wonder how effective he will be.

He came back into that game against the Ravens about five minutes after he injured it, but was held out of practice on Thursday and Friday and was seen walking around in a boot. Next week we’ll see if he gets out and practices.

Here’s the full list for the Patriots of players who are questionable:

• WR Deion Branch (knee)
• OT Marcus Cannon (ankle)
• S Patrick Chung (knee)
• LB Dane Fletcher (thumb)
• S James Ihedigbo (shoulder)
• DL Kyle Love (anke)
• G Logan Mankins (knee)
• LB Rob Ninkovich (hip)
• OT Nate Solder (concussion)
• Brandon Spikes (knee)
• OT Sebastian Vollmer (back/foot)
• WR Wes Welker (knee)
• LB Tracy White (abdomen).

And these players were probable:

• C Dan Connolly (groin)
• WR Matthew Slater (shoulder)

Dr. Rick Lehman is a distinguished orthopedic surgeon in St. Louis, Missouri and an articular cartilage reconstruction pioneer. He owns U. S. Sports Medicine in Kirkwood, MO, and LehmanHealth. Learn more about Dr. Rick.

Brady threw for 50 touchdowns that year and the team was on the path to completing a perfect season: 19-0. But those sacks and the pressure put on Brady disrupted his rhythm enough so so that he threw only one touchdown in that game, ending the night at 29 of 46 for 266 yards.

This year it may be different. Brady is a quick passer with two great tight ends that seem always to be open up the middle. Dumping it off to them for quick gains could be enough to make the Giants defense honest and spread the field.

Lots not forget Wes Welker.

Wes Welker is a wide receiver who can play like a tight end–except really fast. That’s what makes him such a versatile threat.

These three players–Welker, Grankowski and Hernandez–make for great quick targets. Throw in the fact that the ageing offensive Matt Light needs help, Brady ended up throwing nearly 3,000 yards on throws under 10 yards.

The Giants, on the other hand, have Justin Tuck and two-year standout Jason Pierre-Paul. Tuck recorded two of those touchdowns from four years ago and Pierre-Paul is a beast to stop. He’s easily one of the best defensive players in the playoffs so far.

And he’s healthy. So is Tuck. But there are some defensive players who are not as healthy. Here’s the injury report the Giants released today.

• David Baas C Abdomen - Limited participation in practice (LP)
• Chase Blackburn LB Calf - LP
• Will Blackmon CB Knee -  Did not participate in practice (DNP)
• Ahmad Bradshaw RB Foot -  LP
• Hakeem Nicks WR Shoulder -  DNP
• Umenyiora, Osi DE Ankle/Knee - LP
• Corey Webster CB Hamstring - DNP
• Jacquian Williams LB Foot - DNP

If the pressure isn’t put on Brady, then the New York Giants secondary has to hold up and cover the Patriots wide receivers if they want to win the game. Then again, if they can’t, Eli Manning needs to be prepared for a shootout. That’s means Nicks and Ahmad need to be healthy. Even if they aren’t fully, Victor Cruz may end up being the MVP.

Dr. Rick Lehman is a distinguished orthopedic surgeon in St. Louis, Missouri and an articular cartilage reconstruction pioneer. He owns U. S. Sports Medicine in Kirkwood, MO, and LehmanHealth. Learn more about Dr. Rick.

The age ranges from 10 to 19, with most of those injuries occurring while playing hockey. Total hospital visits were around 600 for boys in that age range. Close to 700 injuries were suffered while snow skiing or snowboarding.

For the children under 10, most made trips to the hospitals because of injuries sustained snowboarding, skiing or tobogganing. Adults between the ages of 20 and 49 made the most trips to the hospital due to injuries sustained while snowboarding.

As you might imagine, falls on ice were the most common forms of injury. There were a total of 47 falls a day in 2011–a total of 7,138–which was the most of the winter activities. Roughly half of those falls were suffered by people over 60. And women suffered 56% of all winter falls.

What’s interesting is hockey does not suffer the most injuries. That distinction goes to skiing and snowboarding. Injuries sustained participating in these sports was twice as high. Snowboarder Sarah Burke died today after rupturing her vertebral artery during an accident she sustained in Salt Lake City on January 10. She was a British Columbian freestyle skier and Winter X Game gold medalist, figured to win a gold in the 2014 Winter Games.

The moral of the story is to be careful when you hit the slopes. It’s dangerous out there.

Dr. Rick Lehman is a distinguished orthopedic surgeon in St. Louis, Missouri and an articular cartilage reconstruction pioneer. He owns U. S. Sports Medicine in Kirkwood, MO, and LehmanHealth. Learn more about Dr. Rick.