Better Than Ever after ACL Rehab- Volleyball Player is Faster, Stronger, and Jumping Higher
When Kamryn VanWoerkom started at PowerStrength Training Systems in early 2023, she thought she would walk a path like so many athletes that enter the PSTS doors. Work hard, trust the recipe for success, and become a better and more confident athlete.
While her destination remained similar – Kamryn’s journey has definitely been different.
After just getting started in 2023, she landed awkwardly in practice and the worst-case scenario happened of a torn ACL.
“I just kind of fell, just landed weird and that’s all it took,” Kamryn said. “I ended up going to PT (physical therapy) for a month and had surgery in May.”
Fortunately for her, Kamryn was already at a place that has helped many recover from injury.
The coaches at PowerStrength in Jenison already had a plan laid out for Kamryn. Enter expert trainer, Skyler Davis, PowerStrength’s Director of Training.
Skyler knew what it would take not only to get her back in the game, but for her to come back even better than she was prior to the injury.
“While we were processing the surgery, it’s a 9-11 month recovery, which was just devastating for her, for all of us,” Kamryn’s mother Meegan said. “I had reached out to Sykler and asked what this looks like for her? How does she get back into the gym? He said as soon as she is off her crutches she can come back in and he said we have a program lined up and he emailed it to me that day. It is a 3-phase program that Skyler had written with what to expect, it had timelines in there, 1-4 months expect this. It was really great to have this rough guideline of what our coaches here were going to be watching for her along with her PT. Skyler emailed back and forth with her physical therapist so they had ongoing conversations about whether she cleared to do this, or could you try doing that, it was amazing. It was an amazing aspect, a great supplement to her rehab that I don’t think many athletes know about, or are able to have. It was a really good feeling knowing that we were rehabbing her, but we were rehabbing her well, and she was going to come back strong.”
After 10+ years of guiding athletes back to high performance after injury, Davis has found the following to be true when rehabilitating ACL surgeries:
“Each doctor/PT will have a slightly different plan and batch of tests they use, and we always follow the guard rails set by athletes’ medical teams,” Davis said. “Very generally ACL rehab can be split into four phases. The first 2-4 months is spent getting swelling down, reducing pain, and regaining range of motion and control. Months 3-7 are about building strength, getting that leg muscle back, and resuming some running/jumping. Months 6-10 are about returning to full speed running, jumping, and change of direction work. Speaking very generally, most doctors look at 9 months as the minimum before they’ll clear athletes for full return to play. The last phase of training, usually 8-12 months out from surgery, is what we call return to confidence. Often athletes are “cleared” to return to play but they don’t feel like themselves yet. The progression goes something like cleared, capable, competitive, then confident. Helping athletes fully complete their rehab process and get all the way back to confident is a big deal for us!”
BACK IN THE GYM
Davis and the trainers at PSTS worked closely with Kamryn’s physical therapist (PT) and got her on the road to recovery as soon as she was able.
“They talked a lot with my PT so they cleared them when I could move onto the next step,” Kamryn said. “The first few weeks we did more upper (body) just to take a rest on my knee a little bit, then they had a program where they could slowly start adding different exercises doing what I was able to do at the time, and not overdoing anything.”
“PTs set the guard rails for what we can do in training,” Davis added, “They let us know what we should focus on, and two-way communication between coaches and PTs is a huge part of our process. Coordination on both teams is important to make sure we’ve got the athlete supported, and we know how much to push. PTs generally also handle the testing for “graduation” to each phase of ACL rehab, and it’s important we communicate to prepare athletes for those tests.”
Kamryn was carefully overseen by attentive coaches who knew precisely when to push her limits and when to ease off. With their guidance, Kamryn embarked on a journey of gradual progress, her workouts balanced to prevent strain on her healing knee.
“They did a great job meeting her where she was at,” Meegan added. “If her leg was swollen, kind of sore, a little stiff they would just back off and focus on another exercise that day. If she was strong and feeling good they would kind of push it a little bit to see what she could do and it was always encouraging.”
The coaches, displaying both compassion and strategic planning, ensured that Kamryn could focus on her rehabilitation fully. They even went the extra mile, assisting her with retrieving weights to minimize strain on her injury. With their unwavering support, Kamryn faced each session with determination, knowing that she was in capable hands on her road to recovery.
“I came to pick her up and she was sitting on the bench and she was doing 1 exercise with her arms and the coach got her weights and she just sat there and if she needed to move on, the coach went and got her other weights and brought it back so she wasn’t moving much in those first few months,” Meegan said.
MENTAL GAME
The physical demands of coming back from major knee surgery are great, but for some, the void that is left when they cannot practice, compete, and do what they love can be an equally difficult hurdle to clear.
“It is definitely difficult having to sit on the sidelines and watching your team do what you obviously love to do,” Kamryn said.
Rehabilitating from an injury in the company of other athletes at PowerStrength fosters a crucial sense of camaraderie and motivation. While it’s natural to feel disheartened by the inability to compete, being surrounded by fellow athletes who are pushing their own boundaries can be incredibly uplifting.
“I felt like I was still an athlete,” Kamryn said. “If I was just sitting at home and didn’t have anywhere to get stronger I would have felt lazy in a way and I feel like I can still get stronger when I do stuff here, even if it’s not the same way as before the injury.”
“It was so important for her to be here, workout, and feel like an athlete just for her mental state,” Meegan added. “It was so important to get in here and not feel like a patient and be sad about sitting on the sidelines for a year. It was just a good positive environment to be in, made us feel like she was going to do this and going to be fine. A lot of the coaches here have had ACL recoveries, so that was kind of nice that she could see them and hear their story, it was just great.”
Witnessing the dedication and progress of others at PSTS serves as a reminder that setbacks are temporary and that the journey towards strength and resilience is shared. Moreover, the gym environment provides a supportive community where experiences and strategies for overcoming obstacles can be exchanged, offering invaluable insights and encouragement. Rather than dwelling on the inability to compete, being among other athletes creates a mindset of determination and solidarity, propelling one forward on the path to recovery and eventual return to peak performance.
“Just being in an environment with her peers and other people working out, the coaches encouragement, the fellow athletes in the gym encouraging her, it was just a really good space for her to forget that she was in constant rehab,” Meegan said.
Kamryn worked hard and was cleared to return to athletic activities prior to the end of her winter high school sports season. She finished out the basketball season, and is back playing club volleyball – but a new mental challenge awaited.
“It is definitely difficult with confidence going back into sports,” Kamryn said. “There is always that kind of mental block when I land if I could just fall and get hurt again and go through that whole process all over again. It is really just getting back into the motion of things and muscle memory and trusting myself and how strong I’ve gotten since the injury.”
When recovering from major injury, being 100% capable and 100% confident are not the same. The expert coaches at PowerStrength work just as hard to get the athletes mentally prepared to return to competition and they do physically.
“This is a huge part of the recovery process, and it’s often overlooked!” Davis said. “First and foremost we have a great community of coaches and athletes that all want to help each other improve. Even in that first phase where athletes may not be able to train lower body movements they still want to be in the gym to get around the positive energy and see their training partners and coaches.”
“It’s important that athletes focus on controlling what they can control,” he continued. “Rehab from major injury can be a long and aggravating process, and even more so if athletes focus on all the stuff they can’t do! Our coaches are trained and our process is built to make sure we can meet ACL rehab athletes where they’re at and show them the small wins they’ll earn day to day in training.”
STRONGER THAN EVER
Kamryn is not just back on the court and feeling good, she feels stronger and more athletic that she was before her injury.
“I think it definitely sped up the rehab because my PT could definitely tell when I was getting stronger rather than just going there twice a week,” Kamryn said. “I’ve also gotten faster since before my injury last year, my vertical is higher too. My Impact (club) coach for volleyball, he loves when girls are strong, so he’s been able to tell compared to other girls that I’m a little stronger from here.”
Returning for the end of the high school basketball season was a big goal for Kamryn who continues to defy the odds now that she has returned to the volleyball court as well.
“I played 2 basketball games, I got pretty decent playing time for those. I had tryouts last week and made the regional team for volleyball, which is what I was hoping for,” she said.
Her results are the combination of many variables. Kamryn was motivated and put in the work, she was in the extremely capable hands of the expert coaches at PowerStrength who have both the knowledge and experience to rehabilitate athletes from injury, and the renowned proficiency of a Physical Therapist in assisting athletes through the recovery process.
“Kam worked with a great PT who does an awesome job and communicates well with us (Mike Van Der Laan at Hulst-Jepsen in Hudsonville),” Davis said. “She did a great job getting to training right away, always attacked her work in the gym and her at-home training, and most importantly she kept great focus on controlling what she could control in the rehab process.”
“They had done some testing on her just prior to her injury, and they just did some more testing on her after her rehab. Before her injury she couldn’t do any pull-ups and now she can do 3, she is actually faster now on her sprint than what she was before her injury. She is back at it now and I think she is stronger than what she was before, it just took a long time to get here.”
From before her injury to after, Kamryn dropped .06 seconds from her fully electric 10-yard sprint, improved her vertical jump, and increased her chin-up total to 3 reps.
“This is the mid-term goal for all our athletes, and they consistently achieve it!” Davis said. “In the limited cases where we have pre-injury testing numbers to compare it’s awesome to see athletes work hard in rehab to come back and crush those numbers. Many athletes come to us after their injury, and while we don’t have objective numbers to compare, often they self-report they’re faster, stronger, and more powerful than ever before.”
GETTING STARTED AT POWERSTRENGTH
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5th-12th grade athletes of all sports and ability levels can sign-up at PowerStrength at any time throughout the year while spots remain. Multiple sessions are offered after school and into the evening, specific times are varied by location.
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