“Our response to injury is like hearing the smoke detector go off and running to pull out the battery.”
-Mark Hyman & Mark Liponis in “Ultra-Prevention”
This quote really says a lot about the traditional approach to dealing with injuries. Unfortunately, instead of preventing injuries, the long standing approach to athletic injuries has been to deal with them after the fact. And, what makes it worse, is we usually just end up chasing the pain around the body. All of us have had athletes and patients that get injured, go through treatment, and return to play, just to get injured in some other area of the body. That’s because they don’t typically deal with the actual cause of the injury. They never get to the fire, so to speak. Instead, they just keep pulling the batteries out of the smoke detectors until someday there are no more smoke detectors (parts of the body) to deal with.
Maximum Solution
At MTS, we have a unique and highly effective solution. It’s called the PROvention™ Training System. PROvention™ Training is about properly training athletes from the beginning to ensure high quality, simple training that improves movement quality and ensures that the all of the important aspects of training are being addressed for the athlete.
What is PROvention™ Training?
PRO = Propel, Promote, Proceed
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Prevention = Avoidance, Evasion, Averting
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Combining the art of sports performance enhancement with injury prevention to create athletic, functional and healthy athletes
PROvention™ Training is the art of integrating traditional physical medicine techniques into a strength and conditioning model to prevent injuries and increase performance
It includes:
- Examining rehabilitation philosophies for clues as to how to prevent injuries
- Neuromuscular education and re-education by cluing in on motor learning and neuro feedback loops
- Adapting known exercises to improve biomechanics
- Integrating simple, quick exercises into workouts for a more well-rounded workout
How PROvention™ is Different
Several products have become popular over the past decade for preventing injuries (especially ACL). Most have had some good success in decreasing injury rates and/or educating coaches, athletes, and parents on injury risk factors. Most programs have revolved around on-field bodyweight circuits or warm-up routines. PROvention™ Training is taking many of these concepts, combined with rehab and sports performance techniques to create a much more effective program of improving performance and preventing injury simultaneously.
A Medical Approach
There is obviously a lot of crossover between injury factors and performance factors. It only makes sense to integrate injury prevention with strength and conditioning models. Our athletes will never fully realize their potential until the sports medicine and strength and conditioning staffs become seamless and work together in every aspect of player development.
There are a number of factors that contribute to athletic movement. Some examples of important factors for athletic performance are as follows:
- Strength/Power – Basis of all athletic movement; athletes will ALWAYS sacrifice quality of motion for quantity of motion; avoid imbalances
- Core Stability – Evaluate Strength v. Stability
- Motor Control – 90%+ of sports performance enhancement; muscle firing sequences are extremely important; look at infant learning patterns for clues
- Speed/Acceleration – Combination of multiple factors to move through leg cycle very quickly
- Deceleration – Ability to slow the body under control & absorb force
- Agility – Efficiency of movement; keep weight inside; build desirable motor programs
- Mobility – Ability to move joint through a ROM while keeping the body biomechanically correct
- Biomechanics – Athlete’s bodily structure which may or may not be advantageous to athletic movement
By understanding these various factors, it allows us to begin to think logically about how we might train each area to improve performance (and ultimately prevent injuries).
Speaking of preventing injuries, with the PROvention™ Training System, we have shown the ability to prevent or significantly reduce injury rates in the follow areas (each injury listed with the various factors that contribute to their occurrence to help us further understand how and why they occur):
- Non-Contact ACL
- Hip Strength
- Core Stability
- Motor Control of squatting movements
- Balance/Proprioception
- Proper cut/pivot techniques
- Biomechanics
- Power
- Deceleration
- Asymmetries
- Hamstring Strains
- Hip Flexor Flexibility
- Core Stability
- Equal volume of quad vs. hamstring exercises
- Eccentric Strength Hamstring Exercises
- Motor Control
- Hip Strength
- Deceleration
- Low Back Pain
- Core Stability
- Hip Strength
- Hip Flexor and Hamstring Flexibility
- Biomechanics
- Ankle Sprains
- Proprioception
- Biomechanics
- Asymmetries
- Ankle mobility
- Planting/Cutting Technique
- Deceleration
- Shoulder Pain & Instability
- Pushing/Pulling Asymmetries
- Pec and Thoracic Spine Mobility
- Core Stability
There are 4 major components of the PROvention™ Training System to consider that make it unique and effective. Click on each to learn more:
