17 Sep 2026

8 bare minimum ACL rehab expectations

by | posted in: A360 | 0

🥇 The Athlete Development Journal

Simple solutions for complex athletic problems.

For the full story, listen to this episode on your way to practice. â¬‡ď¸Ź

You can also listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

If you just want the quick-hitters, you can read the summaries below. â¬‡ď¸Ź

What’s going on at GT?

From our athletes:

  • Rylan Linhart: X/10 Fly PR from 1.29 sec a year ago to 1.21 sec
  • Landon Vesley X/10 Fly PR from 1.64 sec at the end of April to 1.53 sec
  • Hudson Linhart: 1/10 Fly from 2.40 sec at the end of January to 2.15 sec, Broad Jump is up 5.5” from Jan, X/10 Fly from 2.01 sec to 1.89 sec, 10-Yard Dash from 2.52 sec to 2.36 sec, Pro-Agility from 6.64 sec to 6.41 sec
  • Katie White: 10-Yard Dash from 1.82 sec in December to 1.75 sec. Project 5.0 commences.
  • Linda Decker: 35 lbs for 3 on DB incline press and 40 lbs for 3 on Goblet Squat
  • Meg Ross: 45 lbs for 3 on SA DB Bench
  • Karen Reese: 30 lbs for 3 on DB Incline Press
  • Dave Tropeano: 35 lbs on DB Bench
  • Kevin Stecko: 4.01 miles on 10 min bike conditioning

In our business:

  • We’ve dialed in GT’s mission, values, vision, strategies, and avatars we’re making content for.

Physical deep dive: 8 things all athletes should expect in ACL rehab

I’ve seen some absolutely wild things from athletes in my clinic recently who are coming over from other healthcare providers.

So, I want to rant about 8 things that should be pretty much guaranteed to expect in your ACL rehab.

  1. Full range of motion to return.
  2. Your therapist to give you SPECIFIC return to sprint, return to jumping, return to agility, and return to conditioning plans.
  3. To not play in any competitive games until at least 9 months.
  4. Flare-ups to happen, especially once you get into more advanced training and rehab.
  5. An early phase that is quite boring and respects healing timelines.
  6. A patellar tendon (aka BTB) or quad tendon autograft
  7. TO TRAIN THE OTHER LEG!!
  8. Objective late stage testing.

What’s going on in my life?

  • Grace started 4-year-old pre-school and is happy to be back with her friends. She did, however, experience her first rejection. She asked a boy to be her boyfriend and he said no… I’d feel much worse for her if she actually knew what a boyfriend even was.
    • Sports wise, though, she’s doing good. Busy with t-ball and gymnastics. She kinda likes t-ball when she’s there, but isn’t as fired up about it as soccer or gymnastics. For some reason she’s started to do a full spin 50% of the time that she swings a bat, which she’s never done in her life. I think she thinks it looks cool, but she never makes contact that way and she’s starting to do it less and less now.
  • Evie LOVES gymnastics, or as she says “my nastics.” She gets so unbelievably excited for it every week. She gets so angry when we go to the gym for Grace’s class, because she wants to go to her class, which isn’t on that day or time. As a side note, it’s really hard to reason with a kid who has no concept of space or time whatsoever.
  • Rachel is a trooper.
  • We’re inching closer and closer to the “Athletic Hour” game day.

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Mental deep dive: You shouldn’t play sports to get recruited

One of the most sure-fire ways to guarantee your future self will end up unhappy is to play sports for the sake of “getting recruited.”

Happiness = Reality – Expectations.

I need to be incredibly clear on this: The Reality NEVER meets the Expectations.

For some athletes, the mismatch between expectations and reality comes during the recruiting process.

The emotions can be overwhelming when the reality sets in that the schools they expected and wanted to go to are not recruiting them.

For others the recruiting process is spectacular and they get a boatload of offers right away, but the reality vs expectations mismatch comes along when they get on campus and realize college sports aren’t all sunshine and rainbows.

You can’t control recruiting, so please stop setting expectations for yourself there.

What you should do is set high expectations for yourself in the process. Expecting excellence in showing up and controlling the things that are under your control.

  • Getting your extra skill work in 3-5x per week
  • Getting your speed and strength sessions in 3x per week
  • Doing your affirmations 2x per day
  • Logging your nutrition every meal
  • Etc.

Your process is something that you have the ability to influence whether your Reality lives up to your Expectations… you can’t do that with your recruiting Outcomes.


Let’s wrap it up with a couple of important things…

  1. This newsletter and podcast are completely free. I spend many hours each week researching, writing, illustrating, recording, editing, and uploading. The best way you can support them and allow them to continue is to share them with people you know. You can just send them to gtperformance.co/newsletter and they can subscribe there!
  2. Everything in these newsletters and podcasts, on social media, and on our website is for educational purposes only and should not be taken as medical advice for you or your athlete. Consult directly with a healthcare professional.

Thanks so much for your help in spreading the word about athlete development!

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Go be great out there,

Zach

Dr. Zach Guiser, PT, DPT, CSCS