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Justin Williams One Of Many Dealing With ACL Injuries

Jan 15, 2008

The road to recovery is painful for Justin Williams.

The Carolina Hurricane winger tore his left anterior cruciate ligament on December 20th and joins a recent increase of ACL tears in the area. Orthopedic surgeon Lyman Smith believes the injury is more common now than ever.

"As people get bigger, and stronger, and faster, that knee joint really has not changed to go along with it," Smith says.

The ACL joins the femur and the tibia and can tear when the knee is hit from the side like in Williams' case, or by a sudden change of direction with no contact like in the case of North Carolina point guard Bobby Frasor.

But ACL tear recovery time has quickened. With the development of arthroscopic surgery, what used to be a career ending injury 30 years ago, now takes as short as 4 to 6 months to heal.

Williams tore the same ACL five years ago. That time, he returned to the ice less than three months after starting rehab.

"The hardest thing is getting your leg back strengh-wise," Williams admits.

So now, with his physical therapist, Jamie Holt, Williams works to strengthen his quad and hamstring muscles, which support the knee.

"He's actually, in terms of muscle contraction, way ahead of schedule," Holt says. "We don't know if that's Justin or the condition he was in before."

Williams has rehabbed nearly every day since the surgery. In only three weeks, he has recovered the equivalent of, for most people, what would take six weeks.

• Reporter: Jason Jennings
• Web Editor: Ryan Craig