Understanding injury mechanisms: a key component of preventing injuries in sport

Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries are a growing cause of concern, as these injuries can have serious consequences for the athlete with a greatly increased risk of early osteoarthrosis. Using specific training programmes, it may be possible to reduce the incidence of knee and ankle injuries. However, it is not known which programme components are the key to preventing knee and ankle injuries or how the exercises work to reduce injury risk. Our ability to design specific prevention programmes, whether through training or other preventive measures, is currently limited by an incomplete understanding of the causes of injuries. A multifactorial approach should be used to account for all the factors involved-that is, the internal and external risk factors as well as the inciting event (the injury mechanism). Although such models have been presented previously, we emphasise the need to use a comprehensive model, which accounts for the events leading to the injury situation (playing situation, player and opponent behaviour), as well as to include a description of whole body and joint biomechanics at the time of injury.