Thursday, April 20, 2017

Box Jump Mechanics after ACLR: after a month of training

We discussed an example of poor box jump mechanics after ACLR. It is shown in many studies that poor jump mechanics is a risk factor for an injury. But it can be fixed through training. 


The picture on the left is taken earlier. She was jumping with her knees almost touching. She also landed on the box with the same knee positions. The picture on the right was taken after about a month and a half after. She is still going through rehabilitation but her jump mechanics is a lot better. She also is not standing straight up like she was on the left picture. She still leans towards her non-surgical side when she jumps, which needs to be fixed.

Saturday, January 28, 2017

Box Jump Mechanics after Knee Surgery

There are a lot of research studies done on jump mechanics. It can tell us a lot of different things. Jumping with wrong mechanics is a risk factor for an injury, not ideal for performance, may indicative of insufficient muscle strength, etc. The athlete may be compensating, not feeling comfortable jumping, or scared. 
       There are so many things that we look at when evaluating jump mechanics. We look at it from the front. We look at it from the side. We look at how much the knees and hips are bent when they land. We look at where the feet re pointing, etc. One thing that we evaluate when looking at the athlete from the front is where their knees are when they take off and when they land. The pictures below are showing a basketball players jumping to a box. Her knees are almost touching each other when she takes off. 

 Also, we can tell that she is leaning towards her right leg which is her healthy knee. She is rehabing from a knee surgery and has good quads and hamstrings strength and training her hip muscles as well as balance, squatting mechanics, etc. So, why is not jumping the right way?! She may not be able to use her muscles, or she is so used to jumping this way for a long time, or there are other  potential factors that her jump mechanics is not the way it should be. Whatever the reason  may be, as a rehab professional, we need to find out why and fix this because we know, from the past literature, this is not a good sign and this may predispose her to another injury in the future.