Latest / The ACL Athlete Podcast / 262 | The Human Body Is Resilient: Redefining ACL Limits Through Lindsey Vonn's Story

Transcript

262 | The Human Body Is Resilient: Redefining ACL Limits Through Lindsey Vonn's Story · The ACL Athlete Podcast

• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome everyone to the ACL Athlete Podcast.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: This is the podcast where we talk about everything related to the ACL, whether that's the injury itself, the rehab process, return to sport, and more.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Dr.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Robbie Patel, performance physical therapist and coach.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Between myself and fellow guests and experts, you'll learn through the lens of the patient, the healthcare professional, and the coach.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: The goal of this podcast is to equip you, the athlete, with the education to make the best informed decision about your care and your ACL journey.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now let's dive into today's episode.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: What is up, team, and welcome back to another episode on the ACL Athlete podcast.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: So today I'm gonna take a little bit of a different spin on an episode.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm excited to dive into it.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to talk about the focus on resilience today.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's not motivation, it's not inspiration or any of that fluffy stuff, which honestly it is inspiration too, but it's real, it's physical, it's the human body, it's resilience.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that there's no better example of that right now than Lindsay Vaughn.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Not because I think people should copy what she's doing, or not because I think this is a blueprint for ACL decision making, but mainly because her story completely challenges how limited we often believe about the human body, what it is, and especially after an ACL injury, or multiple ACL injuries, or multiple surgeries, or ones that you would say, oh, that surgery, she's done, right?
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that there's always these self-limiting beliefs that we put on ourselves as humans, and we always see these heroic comeback stories, and I think it's important to bring those to light.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I think Lindsay Vaughn is one that represents this, especially for the ACL community, the ACL world, being a part of this club and just knowing what she represents as a part of this.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, the Winter Olympics are about to start, and so it's something that has made all the headlines.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: I've had so many people send me these articles, and I've just read up on her story in terms of what's happened recently.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, she's torn a cell, and she is days away from competing.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's just incredible to just kind of see what she is looking at this as and taking it head on.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so I want to just really cover this podcast in terms of walking you through her story.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't know about her, she is one of the most decorated Winter Olympians of our time of ever.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: And she's awesome.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: She's amazing in terms of what feats she has basically taken on, and also just being able to take on these physical and mental struggles of you know, the body not keeping up with the demands of what she wants to do.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I know a lot of people resonate with this.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so I want to talk about that today and talk about also just her to taking this decision of deciding to do the Winter Olympics, even though you know she's got a torn ACL.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: But bigger than that is just her story and how empowering and how amazing it is.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: So let's just dive into it.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so when you step back and look at Lindsay Vaughn's career, it blows up some of the most rigid narratives we see around ACL injuries and knees.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Her career makes one thing very clear.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Multiple ACL tears do not automatically mean the end of a career.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: A knee replacement does not automatically mean the end of high-level athletic loading and activities.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Structural damage does not equal functional capacity, right?
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's not gonna necessarily correlate completely.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then when we look at chronological age, it's not the same as the biological performance of a knee, for example.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: We see a lot of people who are older athletes that we have even worked with that have gone on to doing incredible things, like do Iron Man's, be able to go out and ski so many days a year, you know, and to be able to continue training every single day.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, returning a sport isn't necessarily a single definition, right?
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like it can look different ways.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's essentially the framework for this episode.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so I just want to make sure it's clear the story isn't about like ignoring injuries and just going and doing the thing, it's a story about the human body, it can adapt when given the time, the intention, the right environment.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so before we dive into things, because I want to really share some context because that's gonna help tee things up.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to give you a brief timeline of Lindsay Vaughn's essentially journey through this.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: So she's become one of the greatest downhill skiers of all time.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: 82 World Cup wins, Olympic gold, speed events that put enormous forces on the knees, like really putting so much strain on her body, right?
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: And in 2013, she had a pretty bad crash.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: She tore her ACL, her MCL, and after that was not necessarily the smoothest comeback.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: And you guys may have seen this through the documentaries.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like I watched her documentary a while back, and it's honestly very soul crushing in terms of like just the struggles she went through, but the the resilience and how she persevered through it.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: But you could also see that her career was essentially coming to an end because of just how much she was struggling with things.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so what she had was multiple ACL tears.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: She had revision surgeries, she had, you know, meniscus, cartilage damage, and then years of just managing pain and that joint started to degenerate.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then eventually in 2019, she retires.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: But it's not because she can't ski, it's because her knee wasn't necessarily tolerating what she was putting through it.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: So her body wasn't keeping up, and her knee was the limitation.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: She did not want to stop.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: But the cool thing is that she had a partial knee replacement.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: So people kind of think about a full knee replacement of like, you know, the whole joint itself is replaced with with metal.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: But instead, what happens is you could also do a partial, so you part of the joint where there's arthritic changes and cartilage loss, that you can get that replacement and hopefully get rid of that the issues essentially that can happen after, you know, the the strain that she's put her knee through, and especially through multiple injuries and multiple surgeries.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: So she had this partial knee replacement in 2022, and you know, a lot of it wasn't necessarily the intentions of like I'm getting back to doing the Olympics and all these things.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: It was more so for a quality of life.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: And the cool thing is that this is where I think things kind of really turned because she really challenged assumptions around this.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so from 2023 to 2025, she was back training, she was skiing, she was doing all her things and she's rebuilding her body back, right?
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: And in 2026, she set her sights on the Olympics again, and so that itself forces a rethink of what we believe our bodies are capable of doing, even years after a major injury and surgery.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so she's been competing, she has won a lot of different events, and she has, you know, done her Lindsay Vaughn things since she got the partial knee replacement, and she's been competing, which has been incredible.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: So she is already kind of redefining how even someone coming after multiple injuries, a partial knee replacement is doing.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then, of course, one week before the Olympics, as everyone, if you're listening to this in the early parts of February of 2026, everyone knows that Lindsay Vaughn has torn her ACL on the other knee.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is the thing that's challenging.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: She crashed again, and I'm gonna read the post that she posted.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, she said, I crashed today in the downhill race in Switzerland and injured my left knee.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm discussing the situation with my doctors and team and will continue to undergo further exams.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: This is a very difficult outcome one week before the Olympics, but if there's one thing I know how to do, it's come back.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: You don't say.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: My Olympic dream is not over.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for all the love and support.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: I will give more information when I have it.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you to all the medical staff who helped me today.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm grateful for all the incredible help I received.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, it's one of these things that she's just sharing honesty, uncertainty, but she is also showing belief without the denial of it, right?
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: She's torn her ACL.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: She's trying to be optimistic about it, but she doesn't really know.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so then a few days later, the diagnosis is confirmed.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: Her ACL is completely torn in her other knee.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: There's a bone bruise, there's meniscus damage.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: For most people, you know, a lot of times this is where the story will end.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: This is where it'll finish up.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then maybe next season you're kind of looking at things.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, she isn't making an emotional decision right in the moment.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, she consults with her medical team.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: She's doing, you know, rehab and therapy for it, did some physical testing on it, and she got on her skis, right?
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then she has another post where she, you know, comes back to the ACL injury.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then she said after extensive consultations with doctors, intense therapy, physical tests, as well as skiing, she says, I'm capable of competing in the Olympic downhill on Sunday.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: So that's this Sunday.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm recording it live.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: So if you guys are listening to this, you know, maybe you're listening to it after.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see what the aftermath is of what she does, and we're all reading for her, right?
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: But she says, Despite my injuries, my knee is stable.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I do not have swelling, muscles are firing.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so I know what my chances in these Olympics were before this crash, but as long as I have a chance, I will not lose hope.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: I will not give up.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, in a situation like this, it's not reckless, it's, you know, kind of resilience paired with what I would say is clarity, right?
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so on paper, her knee looks awful.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Torn ACL, bone bruise, meniscus damage, opposite knee already replaced, mid-40s.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: But now let's take this functionally.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Her knee feels stable for what she says, right?
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: There's no swelling, her muscles are firing, she can tolerate the demands of her task of skiing.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where we lose people in the ACL conversations, right?
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: Structure is part of the story, and then there's capacity and tolerance, is the rest, right?
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: She's not saying the ACL doesn't matter, and I want to make sure that's important.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: She's saying right now her system can handle this load, right?
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: And what I did is I did an episode last week on the seatbelt relating to the ACL.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think this ties back really well actually to the seatbelt analogy.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: And the thing is, is you don't feel the seatbelt when everything is controlled.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: You feel it whenever chaos hits, right?
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: Some people can get by without it, and some people can't.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: And we usually kind of define these people as copers and non-copers.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: And Lindsay Vaughn exists at the far end of the coper spectrum, built over decades of you think about her strength, her coordination, her exposure, and her experience, right?
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't make her invincible, though.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: It just she's just in form.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: She like knows the thing about her body and where she is.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: She also is understanding the risk, right?
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: She knows she may need another ACL surgery.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: She may accelerate the generative changes in her knee, right?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: She may make things worse.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: She may need a knee replacement in the future, right?
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: But the thing is, y'all, like she understands the trade-offs and she's choosing this way because you know, returning to sport for her, it's just not this like single definition, if you will.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's a means of like accepting this risk in the pursuit of something deeply meaningful to her.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: For someone else, returning to sport might mean running again, playing pickup sports, training hard, trusting their knee.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: And all those are valid.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: And the thing is, is like she is making this decision, she's taking this risk because it's the Olympics.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: She's an Olympian.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: This is her life story and what she defines as her legacy.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yes, in those 0.1 situations, people are gonna do the thing.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: If you are a senior in college and soccer has been your thing and your knee is doing overall well, but you know, you tore your ACL, but you want to play in that conference championship, you know, it's a risk-reward decision.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a yes or no.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: You got to weigh things out, and nothing is gonna be black and white in terms of making these decisions.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is, again, not gonna apply to 99.9% of cases.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I would never encourage this for most people.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: But if you have this thing that is a dream on the line, someone like her, then you're gonna make decisions that you understand there are high risks associated.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like she could wipe out and damage her knee really bad after this because the ACL is not there to help be that seatbelt that needs it, right?
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: And she understands those risks, but she is willing to do that because she's trained so hard.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: She has written this story and she's put in the work, and her knee is responding overall well.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: So she's gonna feel things out as time goes, and that's what she basically is saying through this is like she's not sure she's gonna hit every event, but she's gonna aim and take it step by step, essentially.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: So the big thing with this that I want to really get the point across is that for you ACLers, and there might be some of you who are, you know, weeks out, months out, years out, it's never too late.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's the biggest thing that I want to hit home from this conversation.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the part I really want people listening to hear.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's easy to say, yeah, but that's Lindsay Vaughn, and yeah, sure, she's an outlier.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: And don't get me wrong, that's true, but the principles still apply.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the biggest myths around this ACL injury and injuries in general is that if you didn't rehab it right early on, you've kind of missed your opportunity or your chances.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: That if you're five years out, 10 years out, 20 years out, then that's just how the knee is going to be.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: And don't get me wrong, there are changes that happen over time that can influence the knee in terms of you know, when you're post op versus, you know, 5'10, 20 years out.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: But the thing is that that's just not true in terms of like that is just what you're left with, right?
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: We have worked with people months removed from this injury.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: We have worked with people 5, 10, even 20 plus years out.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: I've had crazy calls with people who want decided to work with us where they're like, I just never got it back.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like I tore it as an athlete and as a teenager.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: I never had surgery, or I did have surgery, and I just never got back to 100%.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: And it's crazy.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: And the thing is, is they never had the good rehab that they needed in order to be properly tested, properly guided, and having a good plan and making sure that they get to what they want to do and be able to perform at the right intensity and levels they want.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is where it is so key to have the right plan, the right progressions, the right guidance.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: They were able to get back to what they wanted to do: running, cutting, playing sports, training hard again, trusting their knee.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: The thing is, the human body is so adaptable.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's so adaptable.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: And we hear about these stories all the time, and we're like, oh, well, that's not me, right?
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, why can't it be you?
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: Capacity can be rebuilt.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: You can build up tolerance again, you can get confident, you know, and then be able to get back to what you want to do even years later.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so the way that I want to end this episode is by letting Lindsay say it herself.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so I want to kind of share her kind of reflecting on this.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm gonna read this verbatim from an interview she gave, which I think is incredible.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think overall, in this whole journey, you know, this whole comeback is really just been about always believing in yourself.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter how old or how young you are, if you believe and you work hard, anything is possible.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I think a lot of times people's minds are closed and they don't see what's possible because they don't look.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I've always had my head up and my eyes open and my heart open for any opportunity in front of me.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope that everyone realizes that they can do it too.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, maybe they should have an ACL.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: I agree, Lindsay, but even if you don't, right?
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: But I think that through hard work and determination and hope and self-confidence, belief, there's nothing standing in your way.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like that's a perfect place to end because you know, this isn't a story about just ignoring your injuries and going out and doing that, like I said.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's really a story about resilience, about redefining what is possible in this process as human beings with one, two, three ACL tears, with a joint that is degenerating and having a partial replacement, having another injury on the other side, and still going to try and do the thing, right?
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: And keeping our mind open and about not letting, you know, timelines, imaging, you know, even past setbacks or process decide how the future is for you.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: We have people on our roster right now who are months out from the ACL surgery, right?
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: And they're just like lost hope.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then there was something that brought them back around, they were just kind of sick of it, and they're like, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do it the right way.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: And the thing is that most of them just didn't have great guidance and it was really challenging with their particular case, and you know, they had issues come up, and then life goes on, right?
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so then at some point, whether it's your healthcare system, your guidance or providers, PTs, surgeons, like, you know, there becomes an end point where you're just like, maybe this is it, right?
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that's their traditional system and it's challenging.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: So there are people who are getting back on the train who are months out, years out, who are like, I can do this.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yes, it is going to take a lot of work, but these people, you know, we're we're making headway.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: And the thing is, is like you can be no different in terms of finding good help and making sure that you have the right people in your corner no matter where you are in this process.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because the human body is adaptable, it's resilient, and a lot of times people think that the ACL injury, they're never gonna get back to where they were, high performance, being able to do things again.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't believe it because we have had hundreds of ACLers prove that wrong.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: Hundreds.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't matter what age, what sport, and how long it's been, to be completely honest.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: And Lindsay Vaughn is a testament to this, and her story matters, and that's why I wanted to share this today.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, about the way that the highest level of athletes make decisions because of what's on the line, and of course, not applying to the majority of you.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, it's more so about what this human body can do whenever we find the right help and we are able to have the right mindset around it.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the biggest thing I always say is that your mindset will always dictate your actions.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: So if you feel like it's hopeless or you know you're not gonna get back there, then you're probably not.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: But the thing is, is like if you feel like you can tap into being able to keep your head up, like she says, to believe in yourself and to show up every day and honestly just be consistent with the right help, you'll get there.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: It might not be in months, it might not be in nine months, it might not be in 13, 14 months, but you can get there.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: And the thing is, is making sure you have the right support system and people around you to be able to do so.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so I want to finish this up.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: I just wanted to say that I have these links that if you want to catch any of them with you know, some of the posts that she made, some of the ESPN articles, the video that I had quoted at the end, use that as some inspiration.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: I got pretty hype from it.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: So that way you guys have all the resources there.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I just, you know, if Lindsay ever catches this in her lifetime, I just want to say you're incredible.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for just representing this community so well and being such a positive force in this.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: And we hope that you crush all the things in these Olympics.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess we will be staying tuned as you catch this episode, maybe afterwards.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: But um, yeah, wishing her the best.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you guys have any thoughts, any questions, you could always send us a message, an email, anything to reach out.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: We're here to support you in any way here at the ACL Athlete.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, this is your host, Robbie Patel, signing off.