The human body is truly extraordinary. Its masterful design allows you to perform so many tasks effortlessly because of that design.
One such area is your knee. You were able to move any wide range of motions because of ligaments. While these are flexible and quite strong, they are also quite fragile. Many athletes have suffered severe knee injuries where their ligaments were torn, either partially or fully.
What Are Ligaments?
Your knee ligaments are truly impressive, but you may wonder how many there are and how they work. First, it is important to understand about ligaments themselves. These are tightly bound bands of tissue that connect one bone to another. In the case of your knee, they connect your thigh bone, also called the femur, to the two lower leg bones, the tibia and the fibula. These ligaments allow you to have flexibility by giving your knee a range of motion so that the muscles can contractor to allow your leg bones to move.
There are four different types of ligaments in your knee, classified as either collateral or cruciate.
Collateral Ligaments
Collateral ligaments are located on each side of your knee, and include the medial collateral ligament (MCL), which connects your femur to your tibia, and the lateral collateral ligament, which is on the outside of the knee, connecting your femur to the fibula.
Cruciate Ligaments
The cruciate ligaments are located on the inside of your knee joint, connecting your fever to the tibia. These include the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), located toward the front of your knee, and the posterior cruciate ligament (PCL), located behind your ACL.
They Can Get Injured
If you watch football, hockey, or other contact sports, you are likely to hear that a person has suffered an injury to their ACL, MCL, or other ligaments. These injuries occur when a force is applied to the back of the knee while the joint is partly flexed. This can lead to either a tear or an overstretch of the ligament, which can cause severe injury.
However, it is important to understand that these injuries are not exclusive to athletes or to playing sports. There are many instances where common types of events lead to an injury to one of the ligaments. One such example is referred to as a “dashboard injury,”, where the knee bends toward the front when you were involved in a car accident. This will bend, even tear the ligament depending on how severe your knee hits against the dashboard.
Many hyper extend, or overstretch the ligament, simply by walking. This is a very common type of injury, which occurs not only when playing sports like basketball or soccer, but even when walking into a building or down the street. You simply stop wrong, and your knee extends in a way it was not intended to.
This does not even include situations where a person twists the joint in their knee. This commonly happens in hockey, skiing, and basketball, but can also happen if you slip on ice or have an odd fall.
They Can Be Repaired
No matter what type of injury you may suffer to your ligaments or which of the ligaments are affected, know that there are treatments that you can receive which will help to repair or strengthen the injury. Even if you should stretcher hyper extend the knee joint, you may need to see a specialist to get help. Keep this in mind and don’t allow yourself to suffer. Get help quickly.