Several of your soccer teammates have experienced ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) injuries this season. Which activity should your coach emphasize as part of your regular practices?

tricep dips

muscular training exercises

running drills

sports massage

Question

Several of your soccer teammates have experienced ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) injuries this season. Which activity should your coach emphasize as part of your regular practices?

 tricep dips

 muscular training exercises

 running drills

 sports massage

lena772 · Answer

@Compassionate @aaronq

compassionate · Answer

Huh? Is this some kind of trick question? The ACL is a stabilizing ligament in the knee. It gets injured often times during activities like soccer or football where a cleat can stick in the field, then the lower leg stays stable, but the rest of the body turns or hyper-extends the knee. There is no way to 'train' a ligament to be stronger. Quick, but incorrect answer would be 'running drills', but that doesn't work. The best way to avoid is staying 'warmed-up' & avoiding those unfortunate situations as described above. Source: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110806164409AAQcmsG OpenStudy Ambassador: Compassionate

anonymous · Answer

As Compassionate pointed out ACL injuries tend to happen in a lot of the "pivot" or "start and stop" sports (football, basketball, soccer, etc.) I agree that the "best" answer of the four would be 'running drills' but for a different reason. 'Running drills' can be used very effectively to condition muscle memory for proper technique. As an example, if you watch NFL runners as soon as they are close to getting tackled they start pumping their knees higher. "High knees" is an effective running skill used to prevent knee injuries. Source / Further Reading: Look up the Santa Monica ACL Injury Prevention program http://assets.ngin.com/attachments/document/0004/0565/The_Santa_Monica_ACL_Injury_Prevention_Project.pdf

anonymous · Answer

Why would the answer to this not be muscular training exercises? If people are having ACL injuries, it would be smart to strengthen the muscles that cross and support the knee. This will add stability and strength to the knee to help prevent ligament tears such as ACL/MCL/LCL tears. Strengthen the supporting muscles to decrease the probability of injury.