Movefit Labs

ACL injuries are quite unpredictable, joint angles of the lower extremities as well as trunk stability has long been solidified as important key points to biomechanical control needs. However, just because A=B=C doesn’t mean A=C, meaning that although lower knee flexion angles and dynamic valgus collapse is seen in most ACL injury cases, that doesn’t mean that every time an athlete enters that position is a terrible thing. If there is anything we can learn from research, it’s that cognitive function and fatigue has a lot to do with ACL injury potential.

Video analysis done by Walden et al., 2015 showed an interesting result where by 30 of 39 ACL injuries all occurred during defensive positions in football. This shows that when an athlete is placed in a position that requires higher neurological function, aka decision making necessities, the chances of injuring the ACL increases.

Practically speaking, there may be a necessity of stimulating increased awareness during fatigued and neurally loaded state, and that a controlled setting such as that during training may be a good way to help with that.

This video is an example of how to neurally load the brain with various cues (visual and audio) while getting an athlete to focus on landing technique.