Welcome back to All Things ACL! Episode 2 is about Nyla Bui, a competitive gymnast, who shares about her ACL injury and rehabilitation including the physical, emotional, and mental challenges she faced. 

Bui has been doing gymnastics for most of her life. She recently recovered from a torn ACL after 10 months of rehabilitation. During the early stages of rehab, she worked on regaining mobility in her knee by bending it to certain degrees and activating the surrounding muscles. As time went on, Bui returned to the gym to do more conditioning. After about five months, she returned to bar skills that didn’t require letting go and landing on her knee. After about six months, she was able to go on the real bars with her coach spotting her. At around nine months, she started doing basics on the low bar by herself. At 11 months, she got completely cleared. 

Bui talks about how her main goal is to do college gymnastics, and throughout the process, she had to keep telling herself to push through the pain to reach that goal. Since her recovery, she emphasizes the importance of “prehab” which includes preventative exercises for athletes before getting injured. Lastly, she also believes in raising awareness for more information about ligament tears, not just the ACL.

Music is courtesy of Pixabay.