A few weeks ago, you saw me praising Carson Palmer for doing Muscle Activation Technique (M.A.T.) which got him back on the playing field.  Traditional therapies weren’t working and MAT came through big time.

He ended up getting a contract extension…and then last week happened.

Palmer tore his ACL on a relatively non-contact play.  If you recall, Palmer tore it back when he was with the Bengals in a playoff game against the Steelers.  It was a brutal shot to the knee and he was done.

This wasn’t that type of play.

Palmer tried to elude a defender and as the defender’s momentum was taking him past Palmer he reached out and kind of tugged on his left shoulder as his hand slid off.  That subtle hit twisted Palmer just slightly and his ACL tore.  He dropped like a sack of potatoes.  Season done!

The question I have is this: What the heck was Palmer doing during his off-season strength and conditioning program???

I’ve been around my fair share of professional athletes.  And just because an athlete is a professional doesn’t necessarily mean he knows how to workout properly to prepare him for his sport.

Was Palmer doing his own workouts?  If so, he wasn’t doing them correctly for him to have such an easy non-contact injury.  He already tore it once, he should know then to work the heck out of his posterior chain.

Was he working with a strength coach?  If so, then he/she needs to be fired and Palmer needs to demand his money back.  Everyone knows his health history.  I watched the injury.  Torn ACL, MCL, and dislocated kneecap.  OK, he has that predisposition, so let’s start strengthening the posterior chain to get it as strong as possible and prevent this from happening again.

Maybe he did.  Maybe he was doing all the right things and this was just one of those injuries.  Next time I speak with Palmer, I will ask him.

You know who is NOT doing all the right things?  That is your young athlete growing up.  95% of them are not doing what they need to do to reduce the chances of these injuries happening.  Even though there is plenty of research out there to illustrate EXACTLY what you need to do to try and prevent these injuries.

The Ohio State women’s basketball team has already lost three players to ACL tears.  These players were all freshmen or redshirt freshmen.  I’m telling you though, these ACL tears were not a result of hard practices or ignorant training by the OSU strength and conditioning staff.

These injuries were a cumulative result of spending all their time playing basketball and ignoring strengthening the body during their junior high and high school years.

These kids needed a proper assessment when they were in their early teens to identify imbalances in their body.  If those imbalances were revealed, then corrective exercises and strengthening would have been administered for the athlete to eliminate them.

At that point, all you need is annual assessments and a progressive strength and conditioning program that adjusts as the athlete does.  Meaning, as they are growing and they can handle harder workloads, they are introduced to that.  When it is the off-season, you are pushing hard.  When it is the in-season, you are maintaining and helping promote recovery.

It is very easy anymore to identify someone who could be susceptible to an ACL tear just by watching them move.  You need to be proactive and start doing something now to reduce those injuries from happening.

So, if you are a coach, you need to build in an ANNUAL (not a 4 week pre-season program) an ANNUAL strength and conditioning program into your practice plan.  Take out some of your minutes from practice and get them lifting.  Your awesome practice plan can not be implemented properly if your athletes are injured.

We are starting high school basketball here shortly.  You will no doubt see athletes’ seasons ended due to ACL injuries.  Just know that the cause of the injury happening was nothing that was going on during that game.  The groundwork was set 6 months, 12 months, 2 years before when nothing was done to improve the strength, specifically the posterior strength, of the athlete on a consistent basis.

You’ve been warned!