FanPost

Alarming rate of ACL tears.


We all know where this post stems from: Kiko's injury. Every year, more and more players are tearing their ACL. Not only in games, but in camp and just weight lifting and such. It seems to me, ten years ago, you barely heard about it happening. So my question is why is it increasing at an alarming rate?

A lot of people believe that it's because of the CBA rules limiting contact and preventing players' bodies from getting used to the abuse they take during the season. But that doesn't explain injuries like Kiko's. Another popular theory is that the abuse they sustain during the season makes their bodies more vulnerable when the season ends (kind of just the opposite of the first theory).

But what about this? As our scientific knowledge of the human body increases, so does our desire to control every aspect of it. Players now spend large amounts of time focusing on individual muscles, instead of entire groups. Not even just players, really, but everyone. Any moderately sized gym will have machines to train only one or two muscles at a time. Studies have shown that training a single muscle without training the adjacent muscles makes the untrained muscle much more likely to be injured.

Why is it that not only highly paid S&C coaches for NFL teams, but a lot of personal trainers in general don't seem to know this or disregard it? And why isn't there a large scale study being conducted by the NFL to determine the cause and solution of this ever increasing problem? I have very little knowledge about training methods, but it seems to me that an old school, all around fitness (think Rocky training montages) would be better than the current, highly specialized fitness.

What say you, fellow Rumblers? Am I way off base? What do you think the cause and solution might be?

Just another great fan opinion shared on the pages of BuffaloRumblings.com.