Michael Boyle Strength & Conditioning Winter Seminar 2010 – Michael Boyle

     When Michael Boyle took to the stage, his message was simple: want to reduce ACL injuries? All you need to do is commit yourself to a sound training program because in the end, that’s all ACL reduction is – good training. All presenters touched on the fact that training in itself is great from a corrective exercise standpoint, and Mike’s talk just hammered the point home even further. To take the words from his mouth, ACL injury “prevention” programs often consist more of packaging than new concepts, and is a way into the head of the AT, PT or female coach.

     While its true that females are at a greater risk of injuring their ACL, it is by no means a gender specific injury. Out of 100,000+ ACL tears every year, 30,000 of them are experienced by high school age females. Since changing an athletes gender isn’t going to do diddly hoo ha in terms in injury prevention, the only sensible thing to do is focus on the one thing that is in your control – good training strategies to reduce the likelihood of injury.

 ACL Injury Reduction Strategies

• Active Warm-Up

• Power & Stability/Eccentric Strength (Landing Skills)

• Strength Development – 1 Leg

• Change of Direction Concepts

• Change of Direction Conditioning

• Nutrition

      Mike made a point to mention that you can’t just pick one of these strategies and hope to reap the benefits – you must incorporate them all. Since he does a better job than I ever could of explaining his logic behind these steps, be sure to check out some of his products here.

An example of single leg strength.