The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is one of the most commonly injured areas of the knee. For those of you who have sustained one, will know it's a difficult (but not impossible one to come back from). There are roughly 1000 new ACL injuries every year in Ireland. So with approximately an 80% success rate from surgery, that's almost 200 people every year who may not play sport again! Not even beginning to talk about the implication to movement alone, work etc. So let's talk about it in more detail.

The human body contains many types of bone. Long bones, flat bones, short bones and sesmoid bones. For the purpose of this explanation we will focus on one of the long bones of the leg, the femur (or the thigh bone). Bone itself is made up of spongy bone (found within the bone), compact bone (the material that gives bone it's strength) and the marrow cavity found within.