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Previously I talked about understanding the common injuries in your sport and their aetiology, so you can incorporate exercises into your programming to precondition the relevant musculature.

Some programs, especially those working with high performing athletes/teams, spend a lot of time trying to find these magic bullets. I was talking with a trainer last week from one of the richest well-resourced soccer clubs in the world, who have a fantastic program for injury prevention, but are still getting hamstring injuries. Very frustrating.

So how do we decide on these exercises? Where do we start? I’ve always found CarolineFinch’s model helpful, which is quickly outlined below.

· Injury surveillance – get the stats
· Establish causes and injury mechanisms
· Develop preventative measures
· Apply scientific approach e.g. change one thing at a time
· Develop your implementation strategies
· Evaluate the effectiveness of the preventative measures
· Refine your strategies

Each of these areas can be discussed in a lot more detail and complexity, so if you want to do a deeper dive let me know. Otherwise the reference is supplied below.

Finch, C.(2006). A new ….. Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport. 9 (1–2), 3-9