I thought I would share with you several pictures of my athletes doing what I consider essential exercises the female athlete must do for lower extremity injury prevention. This is in not intended as a comprehensive list, that is for another time and place. Consider it a snapshot of some of the movements that must be done. All of these movements are never presented to the athletes as “injury prevention”, they are woven into the workout and the warm-up. In my experience this insures better intensity, concentration, effort and as well as compliance. I also believe some of these basic movements are daily diagnostics, tests if you must, to provide feedback as to adaptive response as well red flags indicating excessive soreness or fatigue. I look for amplitude of movement, rhythm and constantly assess overall quality. I believe testing = training and training = testing.
I have one other observation regarding ACL injuries in the female athlete. In my experience (I have seen this five different times now first hand) the athletes at greatest risk are those that “play out of control.” They are reckless and take unnecessary risks. I don’t have a solution for this, just an observation.
Enjoy the pictures; I hope they trigger some ideas for you.