ACL injuries are on the rise in the NFL, but today I'm going to show you how maybe checking
your depth and how well you are at holding it, can be the key to preventing a lot of
these injuries.
What's up guys?
Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.COM.
I said it in the opening here.
ACL injuries, on the rise.
Now, even if you aren't an athlete, there's an important reason why you need to know about
this because I'm going to show you today how you can determine whether you are susceptible
to getting an ACL injury.
So, we can not only prevent it, but even if you're not an athlete, we can see exactly
how you can translate what I'm going to show you here to the gym to expose any weaknesses
and most of all, as we always try to do here at ATHLEAN-X, correct them so that you can
become a much bigger, stronger, better version of you.
So, I'll put the football down here for right now.
With ACL injuries on the rise this year particularly, we need to have ways that we can take an athlete,
or a non athlete, and screen to see if there are any deficiencies that might be causing
this.
What do I like to do?
This little Wall Test, Seated Wall Test.
Why?
Because it's very, very easy and simple to administer and it only takes seconds.
We all know the Seated Wall Squat.
Ok, so come down here up against the wall, parallel to the ground.
Head up, shoulders back, hands off your thighs if you can because you don't want to be pushing
into here.
You'll see that makes it much easier.
And you go and try to maintain your position here.
You'll get fatigue of the quads.
You'll get fatigue of the hamstrings.
And you want to see how long it takes you to fatigue.
Now, what is the point?
When you have that Seated Squat position, in order to resist my knees flexing too much,
and coming down and just giving in, I need to extend the knee.
And we know that the quad can extend the knee.
So, if I'm down here and I'm holding, my quads are firing to make sure that it's extending
to prevent that.
And also, we're getting hip flexion.
So, in order to prevent this hip flexion from going on, this deep hip flexion, what we want
is hip extension.
Ok.
Back that way, in essence.
You're not going to see all that because we are restricted to the wall, but that hip extension
is going to impact the glutes and hamstrings.
So, when we're in the bottom of that position here, we're actually getting co-contraction
of the quads, hamstrings, and glutes all at the same time.
What does that mean?
Co-contraction around the joint will stabilize the joint.
So, if we have trouble here stabilizing the knee joint, you start to see them do this,
or kind of veer out or whatever, right.
If you get this abduction of the hip or valgus at the knee, then you don't have good co-contraction
abilities around that joint.
And you could see that play out on the field, especially as you start to do something a
little bit spur of the moment, right, not predictable like you would in a weight room.
What are the numbers you're looking for?
In a 2-foot situation, when you're down with both feet like I just demonstrated, the average
for college football players is 79 seconds.
At 60 seconds or less, if you can't hold it for 60 seconds, you start to put yourself
at a much more increased risk of injury.
The next thing you can do is a Crossover where you come down, cross one foot over the other,
and sit here like that.
Again, hands off, head back.
For this version you're looking at a 60 second average time and a 45 second fatigue where
if you couldn't hold it for that long, you'd have to start to second guess whether or not
you're stable enough in your knee.
And again, with the focus on usually the ACL being the thing that goes when you're not.
The last one, very cool, that you want to try, not all that sexy in the way it looks,
but very revealing.
It's going to be a one-legged version.
We're going to come down, so this was one-legged before, but we had stability through the other
leg resting on top.
Now, it's just a free foot up in the air.
One leg down.
The test here, 30 seconds.
If you can hold it for 30 seconds, and you want to test both legs obviously, you've got
a good sense that at least in one area, your co-contraction ability is pretty good.
Ok so it'll be just right down here, and leg up.
I can tell you right away this is way harder, I can feel my glute, I can feel my hamstring,
and I can feel my quads.
I'm not getting a lot of shaking going on here, which is good, but you might see this
start to happen when you do it.
Now, I can do this, and I've tested it before, on both sides, and it is one of the first
things I test with my athletes to make sure that they have that ability.
But go ahead and try it and see, what is your stability?
And remember, even if you're not an athlete and you never intend to step on a field of
competition, having that ability to have your muscles around the joint work the way they're
supposed to, fire together the way they're supposed to, not only keeps you injury-free,
but also allows you to lift heavier, lift more, be more efficient in the weight room
and see overall better results.
Guys, that's what ATHLEAN-X is all about, training you like an athlete.
If you haven't already, and you want to see what it's like to start getting everything
to working together the way it should, then head over to ATHLEANX.COM and start training
like an athlete today.
Get the ATHLEAN-X Training system.
Guys, I'll be back here in just a few short days with another workout.
In the meantime, start telling me some of your numbers of what you test out on here.
We're very interested to know.
And if you're a football player, or just any kind of an athlete, tell me what kind of an
athlete you are as well as your time, we can start to see what some of your scores are.
Alright guys, I'll be back here in just a few days.