Knee

Osgood Schlatter's Disease is one of the most common knee injuries among youth soccer athletes. Although it is rarely surgical, it is often a nagging and at times debilitating pathology with a capacity to sideline a soccer player for quite some time.

Performing leg strength and stability exercises are key components to improving performance and limiting injuries on the soccer field. In today's busy youth sports world with club and high school practices and games, private training and let's not forget school, time can become a factor.

Use this quick exercise as part of your warm-ups.   Its great for getting your hip rotator and gluteal muscles.  These muscles are important for ACL and groin injury prevention 

 While you can never completely eliminate an athlete's chances of injury, you can take certain measures to at least make the body more tolerant to the physical stresses competitive soccer places on it. That's why incorporating injury prevention into your soccer fitness program is key.

One of the best ways to prevent patellar tendonitis is to make eccentric strengthening a mandatory part of your soccer fitness or injury prevention program. This holds true, especially for younger soccer athletes that are going through their growth spurts and at the same time playing an enormous amount of soccer with very little rest.

Split Squats are a great exercise to strengthen your legs. But if you're a soccer player, you will need an additional challenge that protects your knees from injury as well as strengthens your legs. Adding band resistance to your split squats is a great way to to do so.

The lunge to press exercise is an effective exercise to generate single leg strength and upper body strength. This can be considered a progression from the basic lunge exercise. This exercise can be incorporated into your overall training circuit.

ACL injuries are more prevalent than ever. The ACL provides rotational stability to the knee and rotational stability exercises are often ignored in both prevention and rehab protocols. The following is an excerpt from the National Athletic Trainers Association's Public Service Announcement.

Improved leg strength has been shown to increase speed on the field. This exercise is used to improve strength and stability of the ground based or closed chain leg and the hip flexors of the non-ground based or open chain leg.