Collateral Ligaments and other non-cruciate tendons & ligaments around the knee :

loose MCL and running - - Posted by schwack (schwack), 15 June 2004

Hi,

I mildly sprained my MCL around mid-January of this year. I saw the orthopedist about 3 weeks afterwards. He diagnosed me without having an MRI done. For the next 2 weeks, my leg was in a brace in full extension and I was using crutches. When I came back to him after those 2 weeks, he let me get rid of the crutches and wear the brace with full ROM for the next 2 weeks. I returned to my softball team and played 1st base (I basically just fielded ground balls and caught ball thrown to me). After that, I visited him again and he said I was fine.

I usually run on the cross-country team in the fall (we run about 25 miles/week), and ran a short 15 minute jog yesterday. I am a little bit nervous, though, because when I started running, I could feel the MCL in my knee, and it felt like it was moving around. I iced it for about half and hour immediately after I finished running. Today my knee is a bit more sore than it was yesterday, when it felt 100% before I went running. I have read that often times the MCL does heal loosely.

Is this normal? If it isn't, is there anything that I can do to prevent my knee from getting progressively worse? I would really prefer to run everyday now, but I don't want to compromise my knee just for a bit of summer training.

Thanks for your help!
Posted by ATsoccergirl (ATsoccergirl), 17 June 2004

Biking is one the best activities to help the MCL tighten up.  The key is to progressively up the resistance.  Biking seems to provide just the right kind of stress to allow the MCL to heal properly.  It's not uncommon to see a 5-7mm reduction in joint opening after 6 weeks or so of a biking program.  It is also important that you keep your quads and hamstring extremely strong.  The medial hamstrings provide some stability and can compensate for a weak MCL,

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