Peyton Ackley - The Beginning of Change

Chapter 8 - Let's Do It

"You guys are killing me," I fake laughed, "how do you not know what the LSI is?"

"Peyton, I don't know how many times we have to tell you... we don't know," replied Beth.

At this point my concern was still growing, these players had been going through recovery for months on end with setback after setback, and somehow they don't know what the limb symmetry index is... unbelievable.

"Okay then, LSI stands for the limb symmetry index. It is one of the most commonly used indices to measure the comparative strength between ACLs. Now the problem with it, is it isn't 100% accurate and sometimes it fails you, like it failed me. More often than not physios will run one test repeatedly between exercises, the one-leg horizontal hop test. You hop on your good leg, measure, hop on your bad leg, measure, if it's between 10%, you're 'good to return'."

Leah was kicking her legs at the ground as she listened to this, I'd told her my story and now she was releasing that she and her teammates were being led the same way, "We do that test, every week, and the improvement is so slow".

"What do you mean it failed you?" asked Beth.

"Beth don't," cut in Leah but I ignored her to answer.

"I ruptured my ACL when I was seventeen, was told I could return because I was within 15%, but ruptured it my first game back and was told never to play again. That's what I mean when I said it failed me," I replied. "I'll admit though, it wasn't just the test, it was my physio too. That's why I became a physio so I could help as many people as possible never reach my fate."

"I'm sorry," replied Beth which was quickly reciprocated by the group.

"It's okay guys, that's my past, this is my present. I know you aren't going to like it, but I am going to get you to do the hop test for me to have some base results; we will do many other steps to compare the strength in your legs to that of your other teammates too," I explained.

The girls quickly set up, there was a tape measure laid out on the floor and a start marker. Beth was first up, she started on her good leg and cleared a decent distance, then followed with her bad leg. It was almost equal which surprised me. "How many days since the injury?" I asked.

"Umm between 450 and 500, I'm not sure haven't been tracking since my return," she said in an apologetic tone, as if she felt bad for not knowing the exact days.

"Beth, I'm thankful you don't know the exact days, that means you're no longer looking in the past and more into the future, I'm proud of you."

Next was Viv, I'd asked them to go in order from longest since injury to earliest to try and find a relationship between the comparative strengths and time, but I wasn't sure what I was going to find in the testing.

"Go ahead Viv," I said and she happily jumped off her non-ACL leg. I neglected to use the term 'good' leg for her because she struggles with injuries in both of her knees, but hopefully, she'll be good to go. Although much taller than Beth, she didn't make it as far as Beth's ACL leg which set off alarm bells. To not scare Viv I let her do her ACL leg which produced a visible difference to that of her 'good' leg. She was already falling behind Beth, so concern was growing in my mind for the Dutch.

"Leah?" I asked turning around to find the blonde sitting away from the group, "You're up". She moved rather hesitantly but got on with the test. Her good leg was about proportional to Beth's given the difference in time, which was an incredibly good sign, but there was a difference when it came to her injured leg - I put it down the hesitation.

"Okay Laura you are back in regular running so feel free to partake if you're comfortable, but Kaylan, I'm sorry since you're not running with full weight, so I can't allow you to participate," I told the last two.