ACL INJURY PREVENTION EXERCISES

ACL INJURY PREVENTION EXERCISES

ACL Injuries are extremely common, and once they happen the recovery process is long. We spoke to our Athletic Trainer, Brooke Dippel, about how athletes can prevent this serious injury with a few simple exercises.

“If you do anything to strengthen the quads, hamstrings, and gluets you are already taking the right steps,” says Dippel. “Exercises include,”

Squats

Forward Lunges

Side Lunges

“Along with increasing flexibility in the hamstrings and quads. Here are some great stretching examples.”

Quad Stretch

Hamstring

“It is important to make sure you are doing the exercise correctly to prevent injury and to train in a way that you teach your body how to safely get through movements.”

“Another important aspect of ACL injury prevention is landing correctly and softly off of a jump,” says Dippel. “You want to land with even weight, bending the knees as you land softly, and cushion your body as you connect to with the ground. This can be done from jumping off of things and landing or just from the ground and jumping up.”

“Here is the correct form. Notice how knees are straight forward.”

“Here is the incorrect form. Notice how knees are bent inwards. Repeated action like this could cause serious injury.”

The last important aspect to note is, agility. By having good agility this will allow an athlete to protect themselves through an awkward movement even if they don’t know they are at risk. For this I like using the ladder for agility and lateral movement and dot agility drills.