An often overlooked and neglected component of overall athletic performance is your ability to land…..Now I no this isn’t necessarily going to be on your highlight reel once your sporting career is done but it may just help to extend your playing career. Unlike our feline friends who supposedly always land on their feet; athletes aren’t always that lucky. This inability to properly attenuate ground reaction forces that can be in excess of 4-11x our own bodyweight can have serious consequences. These forces are only magnified with sports that involve repetitive landing tasks, plus sprinkle in some cumulative fatigue from competition and you’ve got yourself a nice little cocktail for injury. It should then come as no surprise that 70-85% of all ACL injuries are from either non or indirect contact. Reinforcing the importance of taking the time to effectively teach athletes proper landing mechanics in order to maximise their performance whilst minimising their risk of injury. Now we definitely cannot ‘prevent’ the risk of injury, unfortunately due to the chaotic nature of sport this is inevitable but we definitely can reduce the risk. By progressively exposing the athlete to different landing tasks we continue to build resilience against injury. Key word there is progressively. He or she must earn the right to progress, based on competency in displaying proper landing mechanics. By doing so we set the athlete up for future success.

WE MUST LEARN TO LAND BEFORE WE CAN FLY

Landing is a skill and as with any skill it must be taught, practiced and refined to be able to show competency. Once the athlete can properly land only then can we progress to jumping off the ground and then finally progress to attempting to minimise the time we spent on the ground which is essentially what classifies ‘true’ plyometrics. But I’ll continue to stress to the athletes I work with that we don’t want to out jump our brakes! It would be like having the horsepower of a Ferrari engine but having the braking system of a FIAT hatchback its probably not going to end very well. When we look at competent landing mechanics we should see triple flexion and proper alignment of the ankle, knee and hip to absorb those ground reaction forces (see image below). More importantly the landing should be quite, I’ll often cue athletes to ‘land like a ninja’ to help reinforce this. If the athletes landing sounds heavy it suggests that they might not have the necessary eccentric strength yet to properly control those forces acting on the body. Ideally we want to see the athletes take off position to look exactly like their landing position, if they collapse into a deep squat position upon landing it again suggests they don’t have adequate eccentric strength and or motor control to show competency in owing that athletic landing position. Let’s put this all together now with a few examples of some basic exercises/drills to help reinforce and teach proper landing mechanics. These can be performed as part of a comprehensive and progressive warmup routine. Or can be performed at the end of a training session when an athlete is in a slightly fatigued state to further challenge their spatial awareness and body control when under fatigue which is when risk of injury can be potentially at its highest. The idea being these drills can all be performed outside of a gym setting on the field/court without the need for equipment and can be easily administered and coached in large groups. With the overall focus being on force absorption. Video 1 – Tall to Short Drop landings  Video 2 – Double to Single Leg Tall to Short drop landings – Progressing to single leg further challenges stability and control. Video 3 – Tall to Short Drop Landings to NCM (static) Jump – This is a nice progression as you start to now introduce force production but starting from a static position reduces the impact on gravity upon landing.  Video 4 – Altitude Landings (all is needed is a step)   Lastly…some take home key points: 

• Your ability to produce force is only as good as your ability to absorb force – learn to land before you can fly
• Landing is a skill and therefore must be taught, practiced and appropriately progressed
• There are no shortcuts to improvement, only shortcuts to injury – learning to properly land can significantly reduce your risk of injury as an athlete

Thanks for reading!!!!