Issue 16.1 - Brother, Can You Spare An ACL?

Snowboarding has never been considered a sport for the timid. From peak to shining peak, seasoned enthusiasts and fledgling newbies rip, tear, and shred the unforgiving wilds of alpine America with little regard for life or limb. For a chosen few, showing above-average drive and well-above-average skill, snowboarding can transcend from being a whimsical pastime into a somewhat respected profession. Exotic travel, fringe notoriety, and enough free snowboard product to make even the most hardened UPS man crack are yours for the enjoyment. Yet more often than not, this pursuit of pro snowboarding isn't accompanied by a sustainable living wage. In other words, "living the dream" often equates to living without ample nourishment, savings, and health insurance.

Now more than ever, the stresses put upon pro riders creates make-it-or-break-it situations. Riding in top form for over a hundred days a year means having to step to insanely big airs leading to high velocity impacts on a daily basis. The dire results of overstepping one's limits often end in a crunch. This is the climate that has turned the once rare knee injury into such a common occurrence that severe knee injuries have become less a case of "if" and more a case of "when."

The anterior cruciate ligament, or ACL for short, is the tissue beneath the kneecap which connects the femur bone at the top of the knee with the tibia at the bottom. Together with the PCL (posterior cruciate ligament), meniscus cartilage and a host of other ligaments, the ACL keeps the knee joint from rotating and shifting out of place. This is needed due to the imperfect joining of the rounded femur (thigh bone) and flat tibia (shin bone) with the patella (kneecap).