ACL Injury Was the Best Thing That Happened to My Training

You don’t need to chase what you’ve lost!

18 months ago, I tore my ACL (and all the other CLs and subluxed my knee). I didn’t scan it; I had enormous inflammation one day, gone the next. And no pain (post brain surgery nothing’s really ‘normal’) so my physio just worked with me to let my body heal itself.

No surgery. No dramatic comeback story.
Just a clear limitation. And a massive shift in my identity as an active person!

But also, unexpectedly, a gift.

For someone who has trained consistently for decades, injury has a way of stripping things back. It removes the option to perform. It removes intensity as identity. It forces a simple question:

What can you do?

I couldn’t train the way I was used to.
So I trained what was available.

My arms weren’t broken. So I hung.

Not chin-ups (yet), but dead hangs, swinging, one and two arms, increasing times so I knew I was getting better. i guess I worked on upper body strength.
Scapular control.
Grip.
Slow, honest pushing my pull!

The unglamorous basics.

And here’s what I noticed: when intensity is taken away, capacity becomes everything.

Hanging rebuilt my shoulders sure, but it rebuilt my confidence too. Upper body strength gave me structure. Breathing steadied my nervous system. Seeing improvements in the length of time I could achieve and then the number of chin-ups … believing is seeing is believing.

Hanging from a bar or skirting board in my house felt like creating space in my spinal column and just so good. I imagined all these old injured tissue being released and shunted out thru new lymph, like a hydraulic pump against gravity and the hanging. Ahhhhh.

Instead of chasing progress, I built integrity.

The knee gradually improved — not because I forced it — but because my training became more intelligent. More patient. More consistent.

Injury slowed me down enough to return to what actually holds you together:

• Daily mobility

• Joint ownership

• Strength you can sustain

• Attention over ego

I often talk about belonging in your own body rather than trying to dominate it. This injury demanded that I live that philosophy, not just coach it (karma?!).

And now?

My knee feels stronger.

But more importantly, my foundation feels stronger.

My training is less reactive.
Less performance-driven.
More built around what I can sustain for the next decade — not the next week.

Sometimes the setback is the reset.

If you’re dealing with pain or limitation, you don’t need to chase what you’ve lost. Health doesn’t have shortcuts. Stop looking for a "magic" instant shot to replace the basics.

Build what is (still) available.

The body responds to consistency.
It responds to care.
It responds to quiet, repeated proof.

And often, what feels like regression is simply refinement.