Top 10 Programming pitfalls for ACL's

Recently I've been talking about programming nightmares in regards to the ACL and how common they are. Many athletes reading this will probably be able to empathize with some of these types of training. Programs right now should be better than they were 10-20 years ago and really they should be vastly better than they were 3-5 years ago. Yet I still see coaches and parents and even other athletes trying to implement these same type of programs. It makes sense though, they are just doing what they were taught in the endless circle of training under unqualified instructors. I realize most people mean the best but almost all the time it's better to leave it to a specialist (though some of those 'specialists' are still doing some of this stuff). Each of these could be books just within themselves, which is why I'm going to devote a full article on these later. So for now, I'll save you some reading time, but don't be afraid to ask questions.

1)Plyometric programs without a solid strength base
I probably see this one more than any other, and it amazes me. I still see way to many contacts, coaches having kids with close to zero training age doing Touches and even depth jumps. Over doing plyos is the quickest way to overtraining and injury. Plyometric or reactive type exercises like jumps, hops, box jumps, squat jumps, depth jumps etc. are all very very hard on your body, especially your nervous system. Your nervous system works everything, it is the strongest and most stable system in our bodies, if it is off we are off. But also if the body does not have enough strength and intra + intermuscular coordination your athletes are going to have some big problems.
If an athlete does not have enough strength than doing plyometrics will not lead to any gains, will most likely produce poor movement patterns and can be very harmful to his/her body.

2)Poor warm up, stretching and muscular activation techniques
-You are still the dumbass static stretching before training and competition. Wake up! You are literally weakening your athletes as well as dramatically increasing their risk for injury.

-You're the person that has athletes jog/bike for 10 minutes pre workout. Again, this significantly hampers an athletes ability to perform in training and competition. (I'll explain this further in the article.)

-You're not doing anything to active the muscles your athletes need, lengthen the others that are inhibiting them, or increase their efficiency before hand.

-You haven't figure out that your athletes cannot be leading their own warm-up

-You have no understanding of lung volumes, breathing, heart rates, and/or core temperature. You need a rise in core temp, the lungs need to expand by working, and the body needs to feel like it has already played for at least two minutes.

-And now for the worst one, You DON'T EVEN WARM UP!!
I should not need to say anything here, but coaches STILL DO IT. Ridiculous.

3)Low-No glute/hip dominant exercises
Your glutes have the ability to make you faster, stronger, larger, healthier and decrease your risk of injury. If you haven't figured this out yet it is time to either get out of training or open a book because you are either an idiot or you just have not applied yourself in too long. Either way, not good.

4)Too much static stretching of the hamstring
One of the functions of your hamstring works on the knee in almost the same way as your ACL does. To static stretch the hamstring you are decreasing it's ability to contract, and therefore decreasing its strength. For now, just stop stretching it all the time. Especially with female athletes.

5)Too much hamstring flexibility.
I know this is similar to four but they are different even though they run across each other.Too much length of the hamstring causes a decrease in function and can help your athletes go further into anterior pelvic tilt. Instead of working on flexibility of the hamstring work on it's strength but only in a functional way. ABSOLUTELY NO LEG CURLS.

6)Training in the same way you play. With ankles taped, knee sleeves on, while wearing high tops Bad Bad Bad.
During training is the most controlled environment you are going to experience. Take this time to strengthen the areas that are weak by not using these supportive cruches.

7)Too much attention to the knee itself. Look above and below the joint.

8)The VMO is not everything.
A program full of TKE's are not going to solve a knee problem.

9)Get off the isolated leg exercises

-Leg Curls: the hamstrings never work independently of the glutes in movement, so why would you train them that way. You also do not want to deal with hamstring dominance.

-Leg Ext's: I shouldn't need to explain this. How about, if you want knee and all other kinds of injuries keep doing non functional idiot exercises like these.

10) Not enough work on Dorsiflexion.
If the lower half of the leg cannot dorsiflex enough the rest of the chain will make up for it somehow, and many times it will result in the knee.


These are not all specific to just the ACL. They affect all kinds of things. More important is: Are you still doing stupid stuff? One weak link can damage the entire body through injuries and compensation patterns. Look at your programs, you might find some flaws. Replacing these flaws with good things can make a huge difference in your athletes success.

The ACL injurty epidemic II

I told you I'd tackle the problems with programming, but I think it's possible I left some very important stuff out of the last couple of these. So before we get into the programming mistakes that I see all the time let's try and make up some ground.

The glutes extend as well as abduct and externally rotate the femur and therefore stabilize the knee as well as the hip itself. They are also the strongest most explosive muscle in the body so why wouldn't you train them.

Most ACL injuries occur when the the femur internally rotates and adducts, like when you see an athlete land after a jump and the knees go inward towards eachother (anyone see a correlation here???). This is about what it looks like. I see this happen when athletes jump and land, when they change direction and decelerate and obviously when they post up against another player.

Notice the knee, this is where most ACL injuries happen. Not good. See how the hip could pull the femur into correct position to avoid this. 

Just to complete this moment of randomness lets go over the difference between girls and guys when it come to the knee.

Knee issues are a huge problem for girls. For one, girls are typically more valgus than guys which puts them at an increased risk for knee issues since their knees are already closer to that dreaded internally rotated and adducted position where the injury most often occurs. But girls are also typically more quad dominant and don't have as much hamstring strength as males putting them at an even higher risk. And not to dig on girls, but to make sure you know that girls and guys cannot be trained the same, but girls typically have more flexibility in the hamstring, sometimes too much in fact and that leads to an increase risk of ACL injury as well.  

Hopefully that cleared up some issues. 

The ACL injury epidemic, Why???

Alright, What's really going on here? ACL's are popping all across the nation.



The ACL is the Anterior Cruciate Ligament and what it does is keep the femur (thigh bone) from sliding opposite of the tibia (larger lower leg bone). This is the reason you see most injuries to this area during deceleration, like landing after jumping or slowing down when sprinting. These are the most common factors I see leading to this injury epidemic. (for now I'm not going to differentiate between male and females, but there is a definite difference and is obvious in the rate of injuries in each.)

1) Weak or inhibited glutes, either way its bad. If the hip flexors are too tight, they will pull the hips into anterior pelvic tilt and inhibit the glutes from firing. The glutes are quite possibly the most important muscle in the whole body, if they are not firing you've got some MAJOR problems.
This is most often the most missed and under appreciated area I've had to deal with coaches on. If this muscle is weak or inhibited you are asking for all kinds of injuries and a huge decrease in potential for performance.

Following the striations gives you a good clue as to which way the muscle pulls.

2) To go along with #1 is a weak posterior chain. I already briefly hit the glutes, so lets go to the hamstrings. Your hamstrings perform an action on the knee very similar to the ACL. It is also a major stabilizer for the knee.



3) Bracing. Somethings gotta give and if its not where the brace is it'll happen somewhere else. Ever wonder why all those basketball players where pateller wraps?


How much dorsiflexion do you think this athlete will be able to get with this wrap??

If you are wearing an ankle brace, taping your ankles, or wearing high top shoes you are decreasing the mobility and range of motion of the ankle. Now, like I said before, something has to give. If the ankle is not able to move enough, then the knee or the foot is going to have to make up for that deficiency. So the reason many basketball players need to wear the patellar wraps is because their patella has had to take over for the lack of mobility of the ankle, especially when landing or absorbing force.

4) Footwear. Basketball (in the case of high tops) shoes are heavy, decrease mobility of the ankle joint to extremes and are usually accompanied by athletes that wear nothing but all year long. Same problem as above. Something is going to give and this is why many times you see basketball players with dropped arches or even flat feet and tons of ankle and knee problems.
The feet are not supported in a fashion that promotes health or performance. Most athletes would be better going barefoot everywhere.

5) Quad dominance. I forgot to mention this before. I thought it would be self explanatory but to make sure everyone knows, quad dominance is a huge problem as well. If you move everywhere with your quads you will not perform well and will dramatically increase your risk of injury. Not like the quads are not a great muscle but they can be a problem when the dominate the post chain. So, pretty much I'm saying that do nothing but TKE's to work on the VMO is pretty pointless, actually is pretty dumb, but I'll get more into that next time.


6) Programming. The last, most preventative, and sad to say but quite possibly the most common one I see is absolutely terrible programming. Now this is a whole topic in itself. I'm gonna save it for tomorrow.

Duke vs. NC Basketball, is basketball worth it??

Alright, I apologize for the hiatus from writing. At the moment I've decided to make time instead of taking a some moments to myself in order to watch Dude play North Carolina. I am not really a fan of either and as a wrestler I am not really even a fan of the sport in general. Now before I hear an uproar about this let me explain.



For one, the game of basketball has more gray area than any other sport there is. It's is a very judgmental game. For instance, a post can push his opponent around, BUT not too much!! and you can set a screen and about knock a guy on his arse but then its a foul to lightly touch his wrist while he's dribbling or shooting. Seems like too much to me. I guess I'm too much of an all or nothing kind of guy.

Then the idea of strategy that actually involves certain players not moving or working for a better position seems wrong to me. Seems like each player should be moving and working a grunting with everything they've got for their position. Football and wrestling there is no stop, it is all go. Yeah Yeah I played baseball and as it seems there is much standing around, if played properly every single player should move a fair amount on every single play. Even outfielders should moving on simple hit ground balls, actually they should be running there butts off. But what do I know I'm just a big dumb jock that used to be some kind of an athlete. (Maybe it is the old wrestler in me calling out all the pumpkin pushing skinny sissies that played where I was from.)


See how it fits right in??

Also on a less opinionated note, there are more ACL tears (I'd say almost 100% due to poor training habits, improper footwear, and/or bracing techniques) in basketball than any other sport. Now why is that???? What's the matter with bracing?? And they're all wearing 'basketball' shoes, that's what they're made for how can that be wrong?


Check out this knee in action


Note the sleeve/brace on the right knee of arguable the best overall player in the nation this year.

I'm gonna tackle this tomorrow then this weekend I'll get into what we can do to prevent this kind of crap from happening so much. Really its not even that complicated. Talk with you all soon.