The Long-term Problem with Robert Griffin's Knees

[Captain Injury]

I am a strength and conditioning specialist. My subspecialty is injury prevention, and my focus within that is knees. This is my takeaway from watching Griffin this year. It's a good/bad scenario.

Robert Griffin has a movement issue that causes dynamic valgus stress in both knees. You could see it clearly in the strip fumble earlier in the season when he went down on both knees. You can see it clearly in his SUBWAY training commercial when he does the vertical jump.

What happens is that when his knee bends, through some weakness in the hip, or anatomical pattern, or ligamentous laxity, or pronation at the ankle or some combination of factors, the knee drifts inwards of the hip and foot. I.E. His final fall. This causes repeatd MCL/ACL stress and is a mess to deal with.

The good that will come of this, if there are any competent trainers in the Washington stable, is that the recovery from those ligament injuries will introduce him to the necessary stability exercises he should have been doing before. If this is not obsessively addressed, however, he will continue to have problems with his knees.

[Heisenberg]

I don't doubt your expertise, but I can't imagine any exercise could prepare your joints for the type of hit he took in the Ravens game.

[Captain Injury]

You're correct. That hit caused an LCL injury, which is not within the scope of this issue aside from general ligament damage requiring extra qork from the other ligaments. If you have an LCL injury and a movement issue that stresses ACL/MCL, they compound.

[RFK Lives]

Nice write up and observation, sounds like you know your stuff. I would think we have two very good things in our corner here, an owner who is not afraid to spend money and a freakish athlete like RGIII who I doubt will shy away from any type of rehab.

[braindx]

I agree with your assessment from the physical therapy side of things.

Although given how much maligned our training staff is I'm not to sure of how good they are (but who knows, it really could just be a lot of fluke injuries).

[skinsfan07]

Can't he just get robotic parts? lol like Will Smith in iRobot? Give that man a robotic acl/mcl/lcl!

[gamecokskins703]

Worst case scenario he re-tears the ACL and also tears the PCL. What are the long term effects of a second tear in the ACL along with the PCL?

[Probos]

Thanks for the insight.

Sounds to me like he's F'd. I was just hoping for an MCL injury,...but my gut's telling me ACL and MCL/PCL.

What a nightmare.

[Ghost of Nibbs McPimpin]

why not pass this info to our board insiders who can get it to the team?

[skinsfan07]

Worst case scenario he re-tears the ACL and also tears the PCL. What are the long term effects of a second tear in the ACL along with the PCL?

as long as they aren't complete tears, he should be able to recover pretty much fully. If they are complete tears, could be career threatening.

[MR2Drift]

why not pass this info to our board insiders who can get it to the team?

If the team doesn't know this information then I'd be seriously worried, and every player should too.

[Captain Injury]

@gamcok: a second tear that requirs surgery would be the same as if he had a full tear the first time. Robert is an incredibly hard worker. As long as he gets the right work, he could come back stronger. He is also more of a weaving runner, rather than a LeSean McCoy type cutter. His jukes and twists are mostly at low speed. He weaves at high speed, which is much less of a risk, so I don't see minor losses in mobility affecting his game as much.

@Nibbs: I don't know who those people are or if they are interested in hearing this from an anonymous poster. I created the thread, anyway

[jobaga]

Its nice to see some positive posts today....they are very rare right now

[brdawk20]

Though I'm not an NFL-type athlete, I have been doing martial arts and kickboxing for many years. I was in a skiing accident that saw me tear my MCL, PCL, and menicus badly. It took me a full year before I could do anything resembling a full workout, and 18 months before my knee was strong enough to kickbox. Not sure which puts more strain on the knees.

[Boss_Hogg]

Interesting. I knew it was those ****ing Subway commercials.