Gabriel Medina Has Torn His MCL
It was only a couple of weeks ago, reports came through that John Florence was sidelined after tearing his MCL.
And now, Gabriel Medina has reported the same injury, via his Instagram page.
"This afternoon I had an MRI taken on both my knees and the results showed an injury on my left knee. The recovery time will be between 4 and 6 weeks. Due to this unfortunate event I will be out of JBay. Next week I will start physiotherapy and I’m confident I will be back even stronger. Thanks all of you for the unconditional support."
As Steve reported in the Day 2 wrap up from the Rio Pro, Gabe gets a fresh scorecard in January, so he'll remain in cruise control for the rest of the year.
Comments
Bloody MCL. I did mine. 6 weeks ok but 8 weeks was better. I remember my first and second waves after recovery. First wave mega wobbly and hesitant. Second wave had a nice section ahead of me and I had to bend, coil and DRIVE hard to get around the lip; then FLEW down the line and did a layback. It was as if the need to get around that section woke up all the muscles in my weakened left leg and knee. I came off the back of the wave with a huge primal roar. I'll never forget that feeling.
I did my MCL back at the start of May, same day as the finals at Margaret River...must be around 8 weeks ago. Grade 2 tear
Haven't been back in the water yet..still got a niggle going on around my knee.
I want to make sure it's 100% before I think about hurtling down the line into a layback that's for sure
Touché
My niggle / sense of lateral weakness at 6 weeks really started to fade once I started doing:
- full squats
- Indian squats - static resting squat on your heels
- split lunge squats
- testing ranges of movement that cause some minor pain - i.e. stretch against resistance but also lightly kicking a tennis ball for my dog to chase using the inside of the foot soccer style to create little lateral forces (MCL injured professional soccer players start kicking lightly fairly early to break up adhesions)
All of the above came with minor pain.
No gym or PT for me.
Each day I did at least 100 squats of various types. I also did a lot of stair work going up and down the stairs using the bad leg to do slow step downs in control with balance and 2 to 3 second holds mid step and then step ups and holding the good knee up with foot off the step in a balance position for a few seconds on the way back up.
My sense of what was going, supported by reading, is that it recovery is not all just about muscle support for the knee.
The strengthening / range of movement work stimulate the mysterious repair process of the body. They also break down scar tissue and adhesions in the torn ligament that are not aligned to what the knee and ligament needs to do its job. All sorts of little "micro receptors" in the knee are also in there re-learning control in 3D.
Your exercise routine is a bit like putting oil (stimulation) into the rusty hinge of an old set of pliers and then working it back and forth to toward its full function to remove the rust / grit and gradually extend the degree of bend. Adhesions in the wrong place get ground out and the good stuff remains.
Fear of pain and re-injury protects you at first in the early weeks following injury but can then become a hinderance to recovery if you are too cautious for too long.
Yeah, I know what you're saying about fear of pain or re-injury...
I've had couple of physio appointments, the first one after about 4 weeks...
Like you say, there's more to it than just the muscle around the knee...
I'd say you can gauge the improvements week by week..
I'm going to give myself 2 more weeks before I head out for a surf.
I'll throw a few of your suggested excercises into my routine too...
I surfed a few times after 4 weeks as the pain only came with lateral pressure ( I could walk and go up stairs no problems). When surfing I could get up and ride okay and just kept my leg straight during wipeouts. No frog kicking though - that really hits the MCL!
Then at about 6 weeks, my first wave in 6 foot surf showed me that I have no control in what my lower leg does in a major wipeout! The whitewater grabbed my lower leg as I fell through the lip and shook it sideways good and proper. Massive pain underwater.... and a sense that I had ripped my knee apart and was in for big trouble. I belly boarded in, hobbled home and thought gloomy thoughts. Then, oddly, by the next day, it was back to what it was before the wipeout. This scare kicked me into more serious work to improve things as described above.
I also pondered the pain and sense of ripping I felt during the wipeout and concluded it was a bunch of adhesions and scar tissue getting worked over rather than the core ligament itself. Maybe it even helped longer term? It set me off reading more about the role of adhesions and scar tissue. I came across a soccer coach / physio who advised his MCL injured players to start lightly kicking balls after say 4 weeks to break up the adhesions where twinges and minor pain was considered okay, but major pain meant stop. Hence, acceptance that you can over protect. Use it or lose it also applies.
Everyone is different but during recovery, smaller surf can probably be ridden okay carefully by many with grade 1 or 2 MCLs if you can walk okay. Lock the leg straight out during a wipeout as this gives the most resistance against lateral valgus forces. Bigger waves, or hollow stuff, however, can do you over as you have limited control.
If J-Bay pumps, it’s Ewing’s to lose.
Toledo or Jordy too.
Too big for filipe
Are all those hail Mary airs coming back to haunt Gabe and JJF?
Playing catch up and being underprepared probably played a big part
Heres some exercizes if your injured.
My MCL injury is now100%.
Phew, had some major doubts at 6 weeks but time, and some more consistent systematic work for the next 6 weeks, moved things along.
My impression was that fast tracking the recovery to say just 6 weeks by sheer hard work was maybe not possible. The ligament needs time + work to move through the various stages of repair. Mine was more ready to respond after 6 weeks.
It will be interested to see how Gabs and JJ progress given they have more help and time than me.
I doubt both of them would be in a mood to rush back.
Gabes is now mathematically almost impossible to make the 5 and JJF has had his career so disrupted by injury he will be keen to get it fully rehabbed.
I guess prize money's not a huge incentive for the top blokes either.
Could it be that layback cutbacks are a major cause of these injuries? They sure look cool and feel awesome but i have a feeling doing them over and over getting more radical with them is a stress on ligaments in the knee.
That said i dont see Clay Marzo with many injuries ever.
Many say that Gabe has the weakest front side carve in the game.
Figures he’d blow his knee trying