In case you missed tip 2 on preventing hamstring pulls, click here to read!
ACL prevention is just Quality Training. With a growing rate in tears, the positive that a lot of non-contact injuries can be prevented through This proper strength training, more posterior chain development & sound progressions through jumping and landing.
With that said, we obviously must teach our athletes how to land & absorb force. ACL tears happen in the eccentric phase (do you get hurt jumping or landing? Most times landing). Because of this we are extremely aware of the need to properly teach our athletes how to land athletically. Single leg training is a crucial component of our training which is why we place emphasis on single leg jumps as well.
We progress in this fashion to give our athletes confidence & mastery of the basics. There is no need to rush to the faster stages & depending on how far out the athlete is to their season (or if they're in-season) we don't need to necessarily go fast all the time.
In a typical off-season program, we like to first start with concentric box jumps that focus on teaching athletes to focus on concentric power while landing tall on a box. Using a box is safer when teaching landing positions as we limit the distance we have to land. (First video) With this we will also do single leg box jumps as well on one leg. We will do this laterally as well (not shown).
Next, we will remove the box and will do single/double leg hurdle jumps/sticks. We will allow athletes to go through a stretch-shortening cycle and teaching athletes to get over an object and how to absorb more force than with box jumps as their tissue strengthens. We will do this both lineally/laterally/medially. (shown in the second video)
From there we will progress to double bounce on 1 foot and 2 straight ahead, lateral and medial as we progress to a faster sequence. We also use hurdles to teach athletes to explode and land higher hurdles.
Last we might do something reactive such as the lateral rebounding jumps or bound (shown). It is important to note that while these jumps are the "flashy" things we must do, we must understand eccentric strength and single leg strength are important factors in decreasing Lower body injuries. Strength training needs to be the meat and potatoes of any program.
Lastly, tying it all together, advance agility drills (even ladders--yep they're great for certain things) is a great way to train athletes to accept force at difference shin/knee angles and re-direct it. During agility drills athletes much learn to properly decelerate. The drill shown in the last video is advanced and should be worked up to.