It can even be a career ending injury in professional and collegiate sports. The main function of the knee besides holding everything in place is to make sure that the knee doesn’t hyperextend medially. It also aids in the stabilization of the knee and allowing it to rotate. If you plant your foot and stabilize your other joints you will notice you can still rotate on the axis of your knee slightly. The main reason it is only slightly is because of the MCL and LCL. Injury can come in many forms to the MCL. Deceleration and then acceleration in another direction especially laterally is a large culprit to MCL strains, sprains and tears. The other most common way to injure the MCL is when an outside force is applied to the opposing side causing the movement that the MCL is there to stop. An example would be a football player catching a helmet to the lateral side of the knee causing it to hyperextend medially. (see figure
It can even be a career ending injury in professional and collegiate sports. The main function of the knee besides holding everything in place is to make sure that the knee doesn’t hyperextend medially. It also aids in the stabilization of the knee and allowing it to rotate. If you plant your foot and stabilize your other joints you will notice you can still rotate on the axis of your knee slightly. The main reason it is only slightly is because of the MCL and LCL. Injury can come in many forms to the MCL. Deceleration and then acceleration in another direction especially laterally is a large culprit to MCL strains, sprains and tears. The other most common way to injure the MCL is when an outside force is applied to the opposing side causing the movement that the MCL is there to stop. An example would be a football player catching a helmet to the lateral side of the knee causing it to hyperextend medially. (see figure