Martial arts with a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL)?

Question

Recently I was told by my doctor that I have a fully torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and I've been told to stay away from karate (specifically Shorinji-Ryu Karate-Do Renshinkan) for the time being and that as of right now I'm not a good canidate for sugury for various reasons.

I have been contimplating where I was going with regards to Renshinkan for awhile now as it does require some fairly low stances and I'm signficantly taller than the average and the doctor thinks the low stances might have been putting too much stress on my knee as I ulimiately fully tore it while going to throw washi giri (round kick) during kumite after having had it paritally torn two years ago.

For now the doctor is taking a very conservitive treatment approch as I have extremely good knee stability (ran a 5k on it recently) but I was wondering what my options are with regards to martial arts that don't put a lot of pressure on the knees. I have been told that kendo might be an option and I've always had an interest in it, but I'm wondering if there are other options that I should take a look at.

Answer 1

Talk to your doctor/physical therapist for the details on what you should avoid, but in general:

• Avoid arts that involve kicks, especially high kicks.
• Avoid arts that emphasize deep stances.
• Avoid tournament arts.

Kicking and deeper stances are, in general, significantly harder on the knees and the surrounding tissue. Not that you can't work up to it eventually, but generally if you are having knee problems I recommend avoiding arts that have a high focus there.

Tournament arts, especially hand-to-hand tournament arts, are another one I generally recommend avoiding in these situations, because there's a high temptation to push your body to get just that extra inch of reach or go just a little further on adrenaline than you would otherwise consider. There's also a higher chance of re-injury from an opponent.

This is less of a problem for highly constrained weapon arts (e.g., kendo), but is a problem for a lot of freer form fighting.

As far as specific arts, without knowing the specifics of your area or your interests, I'd talk to the instructors of a few different martial arts that you are interested in and ask:

• If they anticipate a problem in terms of stances or other techniques, given your medical restrictions.
• If they emphasize avoiding self-injury (or as my instructor likes to say "if it hurts, don't do it!").
• If they are okay with you going slower to accommodate for your injury.

If you like the answers to these and otherwise like the school/art, then you've found a good match. Otherwise, keep looking, and keep the standard advice for looking for a new dojang in mind.

Answer 2

the doctor thinks the low stances might have been putting too much stress on my knee

I would tend to contradict your doctor to a certain degree - low stances do not produce adverse stress on the knee joint¹ unless you do specific things like let the knee drift out further than your big toe or you fail to maintain a straight perpendicular back (i.e. you let you butt drift back and you tend to lean forward).

Your instructor should be skilled and experienced enough to spot common stance issues like this.

I ulimiately fully tore it while going to throw washi giri (round kick) during kumite

I would suggest that this occurred due to poor technique. If it was on your support leg then it was most likely one (or more) of these:

• you failed to rotate your support foot
• you didn't bring your hips up and over
• you were over-reaching
• you left the ground and landed incorrectly

If it was on your kicking leg then you were sloppy and didn't deliver focus at the correct point (i.e. you didn't tense at the moment of impact).

Ligaments can take a long time to heal properly and I would advise professional help with it (use a physiotherapist). Once it is healed you will still have a certain amount of natural inbuilt apprehension when it comes time to start using that joint full on, that can be counter productive so do be aware of it. Other than that, I would concur with David's answer regarding ongoing training, and focus more on straight kicks like mai geri as they don't stress the knee in the same way.

¹ This is generally true regardless of your physical dimensions unless you are an extreme case. The only time I would change someone's practice of low stances is if they were enormously fat, had a deformed skeletal system (like a warped spine), or they had a pre-existing condition (bone degradation, arthritis, artifical joints, unhealed breakages/tears, etc). Of course a low stance is like all other techniques, it takes time and practice to perfect and you shouldn't go for the ultimate low stance immediately - as mentioned above this comes back to the experience of the instructor.