Do your kids play field sports like football, hurling, soccer and rugby? Do you coach/train field athletes?

If so, are they conducting a preventative ACL programme that can reduce the risk of injury? Do you as coach/trainer/parent encourage your athlete/kids to implement an ACL prevention programme.
ACL injuries are one of the most prevalent non-contact injuries in field sports, in fact 80% of ACL injuries have been reported as non-contact. Meaning the athlete cutted or landed with no one beside them and experienced an ACL injury.

There are modifiable risk factors associated with non-contact ACL injuries such as;

1. Hyperextension of the knee

2. Increase knee valgus

Keeping these modifiable non-contact risk factors in mind we now know that ACL injury prevention programmes can reduce the risk of ACL injury. It has been reported that between 52% and 85% of ACL injuries have reduced with the use of these programmes (Nessler, Denney and Sampley, 2017).
The goals of the programme are to combine plyometric, neuromuscular and strength exercises focusing on improving dynamic trunk stability, single leg strength and dynamic knee control (Silvers-Granelli et al., 2017) .
So, if you are a coach, trainer, strength and conditioning trainer, chartered physiotherapist or parent we all have a duty of care to implement these programmes with our athletes.
If you are unsure, please advise your athlete/kids to attend a chartered physiotherapist that has the knowledge to educate them on implementing the programme with correct technique. The programme is most affective if implemented throughout the season prior to training and matches. These programmes are readily available free to download, below are some examples.

Why wait for the ACL injury lets react now and do our bit in reducing ACL injuries in field sports.

Damien (MISCP)
Chartered Physiotherapist

Warm Up Examples

GAA 15 Warm Up https://learning.gaa.ie/Gaelic15
FIFA 11+ Warm Up Poster http://www.yrsa.ca/pdf/Fifa11/english.pdf
FIFA 11 + Warm Up manual http://www.yrsa.ca/pdf/Fifa11/11plus_workbook_e.pdf
Activate GAA Warm Up http://activategaa.sini.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Long-guide-amended.pdf

Reference

Nessler, T., Denney, L. and Sampley, J. (2017). ACL Injury Prevention: What Does Research Tell Us?. Current Reviews in Musculoskeletal Medicine, 10(3), pp.281-288.

Silvers-Granelli, H., Bizzini, M., Arundale, A., Mandelbaum, B. and Snyder-Mackler, L. (2017). Does the FIFA 11+ Injury Prevention Program Reduce the Incidence of ACL Injury in Male Soccer Players?. Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research®, 475(10), pp.2447-2455.