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Kobe Bryant’s Achilles Injury Breakdown – Why His Career is Most Assuredly NOT Over

Kobe Bryant’s Achilles Injury Breakdown – Why His Career is Most Assuredly NOT Over

With his Lakers in desperation mode as the season winds down, Kobe Bryant seems to have sustained one of the more nasty injuries pro-athletes face: the dreaded Achilles tendon rupture.  This injury is particularly tough because when the tendon is ruptured, there is no way around surgery.  The typical recovery time is about 6-9 months.  The primary goal of Kobe’s rehab is going to be gradually restoring his strength and hopefully maintaining his explosiveness.

The Achilles tendon is the attachment point for the calf muscles – the soleus and the gastrocnemius.  The soleus is the smaller muscle that is closer to the ankle, and its job is to work for a long period of time – ie while walking or running a long distance. The gastrocnemius is the larger muscle that attaches across the knee joint – its role is in explosive movements like sprinting and jumping. Both muscles combine to allow the foot to push off during all standing activities.

 

Now imagine taking a pair of garden shears to that.

Achilles ruptures are most common in males in their late 20′s to mid 30′s.  The reasons for this are that a) flexibility slowly decreases at this age and b) blood supply becomes slightly compromised in the distal (farthest away from the center of the body) extremities. These factors, combined with high activity level, make for greater susceptibility to injury.

Take a look at what happened:

Any experienced trainer or physical therapist can tell right away what happened.  He plants his foot and…nothing happens.  Down goes Kobe.  The foot tries to push off and the Achilles tears.  It usually happens during the eccentric phase of motion -the muscles tries to contract while it is elongating at the same time (think doing a “negative” at the gym”).  It’s like jumping off a diving board and having it snap before it propels you up.

 

Skip to 1:00 for instant fun.

There is some debate as to whether Kobe playing a massive amount of minutes as of late combined with a minor ankle injury earlier in that same game caused the injury.  I say no as this injury happens fairly often to people like Kobe all the time.  It’s not linked to fatigue, or breaking down, or anything like that. More importantly – in win-or-die mode, do you think Kobe is going to listen to “hey, you’re getting on in years, maybe we should sit you down and let Steve Blake take over for a while, you might tear your Achilles later” even if it was true? In addition, there’s no way to prove that there is any causal relationship between the injury earlier in the game and the big one later on.  Blame Mike D’Antoni for the disjointed Laker’s offense and poor effort on defense, not this.

The surgery itself will consist of one of three procedures.  First – if there are some fibers still attached, the surgeon will simply sew it back together.  Second – if the tear is truly complete, they will use part of the plantaris muscle (a vestigial muscle – it has very little use in the modern evolved human body).  Third – a wire mesh may be used over the graft to further bolster the repair.

There’s lots of chatter that Kobe’s career may be over.  Let me help explain in a few words – there is literally no chance that this is ending Kobe’s career. None.  Chauncey Billups came back.  Elton Brand came back.  Dominique Wilkins is the poster child for Achilles rupture rehab – he returned in 9 months and made 2 all-star teams afterward.  There is no reason – and this is irrespective of Kobe’s “heart” and “drive” and all of that – that Kobe cannot recover from this.  His heart will only help him, but he’s a 34 year old man with the best available care on earth and a pro-athlete undergoing a relatively routine surgery.  That’s why he’s going to come back.  The fact that he has a pathological desire to prove doubters wrong and win is the icing on the cake.

If he makes this face at his Achilles, it’ll probably repair itself.

The only two questions remaining are when will he come back and how good will he be.  Achilles ruptures are not like ACL ruptures in that the surgery often robs the athlete of some explosiveness no matter what.  This is where smarts and desire come in but cannot conflict with each other.  Kobe cannot afford to rush back as you know he will probably want to (a la Derek Jeter, who is of similar mindset).  All things considered, I think he’ll be back in 6-8 months and will still play at a pretty high level.  He’ll have to modify his game a bit – look for him to be shooting threes at an all time high rate next year

Whoever is coaching the Lakers will have to deal with that.

 

 

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Steve Caronia is a New York City based physical therapist. He’s no Laker fan, but will feel a little empty watching the NBA playoffs without the Black Mamba.

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