As athletes are recovering from an injury, visualizing movement (mental imagery) has been shown to be beneficial in maintaining skills, decreasing stress, increasing self confidence, and increasing motivation to train to return to their sport (Research Quarterly for Exercise & Sport, Vol. 78, Sept. 2007, Pg 351-363). There have also been studies that show how
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Before every jump an athlete performs, there is a quick lowering (eccentric) motion followed by a transition from lowering to rising (amortization phase). Several recent studies have suggested (and our observations over the past 15 years suggest the same), that increasing ones ability to overcome the eccentric and transition phase more rapidly can improve the
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A recent study in the published in the Journal of Applied Physiology raised the idea that lifting light loads (30% of 1RM) to failure can be just as beneficial to strength development as lifting heavy loads to failure. At AthleteFIT we have seen very similar results over the last decade with our younger or less
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The subject of this case study is a 15 year old high school female soccer player who had just suffered her second ACL tear in a eight month period. Her first injury, in October of 2010, was to the right ACL and her second injury, in June of 2011, was to the left ACL. Her
Read MoreEven with the best programming for risk reduction, ACL injuries still happen. And when they do, it is the responsibility of the therapist or performance coach to rebuild the athlete’s confidence as well as their strength. Quite often, there is a lack of confidence or the physiological factor that contributes to the athlete’s ability to
Read MoreProgramming for Risk Reduction and Improved Performance: There are many programs out there that have been shown to reduce the risk of injury when used in the pre-season. But… “Results suggest that training duration may be an important factor to consider when designing injury prevention programs that facilitate long-term changes in movement control (Padua,
Read MoreOver the past few years much of the research, including a recent review (Bien, 2011) named the several biomechanical/neuromuscular risk factors for non-contact ACL injury, as well as the most effective programming implementations for prevention. Here are the area’s we focus on in our program model: Hip and Knee Pathomechanics Hamstring Activation and Strength Deficits
Read MoreAnnually in the US alone there are over 80,000 ACL tears occurring primarily in athletes 15-25 years of age that participate in sports that require aggressive pivot based movements (Griffin, 2000). In the past 12 years we have had over 3000 female athletes come through our program, and in that time we have seen 11
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In this post we are comparing the weighted jump squat to unweighted jump squats (counter movement jump), and commenting on which weighted version might be more similar in pattern to the unweighted jumps. When working with younger athletes in a developmental stage, we need to continue to focus on the movement of the exercise and
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Two of the most discussed aspects associated with injury risk reduction during the season are: 1) lower limb symmetry and 2) force absorption qualities. We used a Hop and Stop test of bilateral force production / force absorption, and the results showed a tremendous gain in symmetry in both the hopping and leaping exercises. We
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