ACL injuries should be on the decline since we know that ACL injury prevention programs like the FIFA 11+ significantly reduce the risk of this injury. But instead, they’re on the rise — especially among high school athletes and particularly among high school female athletes in running, jumping and cutting sports like soccer, basketball, field hockey and lacrosse.

Not all injuries can be prevented. A vicious tackle from behind can take out an ACL in a split second. But the non-contact ACL tear, the plant and cut ACL tear, the shove and give-way ACL, the straight-legged land and pop ACL — these are injuries we can knock down by half if we train our athletes right.

So how do we do this?

Here’s the key: the ACL in a bent knee, hinged with proper alignment, with balanced muscular support (front-to-back), is nearly impossible to tear. That is, the body in good athletic position, is prepared to play and stay healthy. I call it the “B-B-B”: Bend your knees, Balls of your feet, Balance heads up and ready to play.

The challenge is: kids, particularly girls, have not developed their game using this body positioning. They tend to bend from the waist, not the knees. They jump and land straight-legged. They cut and turn relying on strong quadriceps which over-power weak hamstrings. We need to address those movement errors to protect their joints.*

Here are your cues to coaching healthy body position to prevent ACL injuries:

Teach them to bend their knees in a perfect squat

Teach them to jump and land quietly on the balls of their feet

Translate the knee bent position into their change of direction

Translate the B-B-B Position into Game Movement

The Gold Standard to Wipe Out ACL injury … start with free play

Because children often don’t participate in neighborhood free play these days, youth sports instruction may be their first introduction to getting to know their body and how it moves. If you work with young children 3-5 years old, please scrap the game plan, the strategy sheet and the scoring play. Let them run around, play tag, duck-duck goose, jump rope, hop scotch, steal the bacon… or a game of their own creation. This is how they will learn who they are when they move.

As a friend described it, I want to see animals in the wild of the Serengetti, not the confines of the zoo. The same with our children. Let’s let them run free in the field, not the enclosure of positions on offense and defense. There’ll be plenty of time for the 4-3-3 or the 5-4-1 when the time comes.

Here’s more on ACL Injuries: Prevention and Recovery.