The "N" Word

"Neuromuscular Training Improves Knee Kinematics, in Particular in Valgus Aligned Adolescent Team Handball Players of Both Sexes- Barendrecht et al, JSCR 3-11."


I am guilty of using it. No I'm not speaking of the term that you hear rappers use. I talking about the word, "neuromuscular". It has become as ambiguous as the word "core". Nordic hamstring curls are considered neuromuscular in this study. The authors achieved their goals of improving knee valgus on a drop jump test...but the control group was "usual handball training", whatever that was. Was it no strength training at all? It wasn't clear. And that's the problem with these ACL prevention protocols- they always compare to no intervention at all.

Is this the way the A.T. would do it? Would we take athletes which we had no idea of their conditioning history and have them bounding? Triple jumping? ...As part of a 10 week ACL prevention protocol? I doubt it because we know what would happen. Patellar tendinosis, patellafemoral syndrome up the wazoo. If not in 10 weeks, soon after. Since we spend years, and not weeks with our athletes (as opposed to other practitioners) we know there is no such thing as a quick fix. We think LTAD= long term athletic development= functional leg progressions. Rather than a 2X per week, it would be interwoven seamlessly into the daily warmup and conditioning modules. No P90X, no "Instanity workout"- no guru, no method, no teacher.