Abstract
While many anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) prevention programs have been published, few have achieved significant reductions in injury rates and improvements in athletic performance indices; both of which may increase compliance and motivation of athletes to participate. A supervised neuromuscular retraining program (18 sessions) was developed, aimed at achieving both of these objectives. The changes in neuromuscular indices were measured after training in 1000 female athletes aged 13–18 years, and the noncontact ACL injury rate in 700 of these trained athletes was compared with that of 1120 control athletes. There were significant improvements in the drop-jump test, (p < 0.0001, effect size [ES] 0.97), the single-leg triple crossover hop (p < 0.0001, ES 0.47), the t-test (p < 0.0001, ES 0.64), the multi-stage fitness test (p < 0.0001, ES 0.57), hamstring strength (p < 0.0001), and quadriceps strength (p < 0.01). The trained athletes had a significant reduction in the noncontact ACL injury incidence rate compared with the controls (1 ACL injury in 36,724 athlete-exposures [0.03] and 13 ACL injuries in 61,244 exposures [0.21], respectively, p = 0.03). The neuromuscular retraining program was effective in reducing noncontact ACL injury rate and improving athletic performance indicators.
Highlights
It is well known that adolescent female athletes have a 4- to 8-fold higher incidence of sustaining a complete noncontact anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury compared with male athletes participating in the same sport or activity [1,2,3]
The second goal was to determine noncontact ACL injury rates in a subset of 700 of the trained athletes compared with 1120 control athletes matched for age, sport, and body mass index. We hypothesized that this program would significantly improve neuromuscular and athletic performance indicators and significantly decrease the risk of noncontact ACL injuries in female high school athletes
The major finding of this investigation is that the ACL neuromuscular retraining program both significantly decreased the incidence of noncontact ACL injuries and improved athletic performance indicators in adolescent female athletes
Summary
It is well known that adolescent female athletes have a 4- to 8-fold higher incidence of sustaining a complete noncontact anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury compared with male athletes participating in the same sport or activity [1,2,3]. A complete ACL injury is indicated by 5 mm or more of increased anteroposterior tibial displacement on an instrumented or clinical Lachman test and a fully positive pivot shift test (grade 2 or 3 on a 0–3 point scale). At least two-thirds of ACL tears are noncontact in nature and occur when an athlete is cutting, pivoting, accelerating, decelerating, or landing from a jump [4,5,6]. Over the past 20 years, many ACL injury prevention programs have been developed in an effort to decrease the injury rate in female athletes [11,12]. Consensus statements from research retreats and committees agree that the ideal
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
