A literature search was performed using PubMed and EBSCOhost in January 2018 with specific inclusion criteria and the Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro) scale was used to assess quality and risk of bias (see this link).

Data extracted from the studies included publication year, study design, sample size, number of ACL injuries, group characteristics (e.g. age and sport), and NMT characteristics, including exercise type and number per session, volume, duration, training time, and implementer training. Data analysis focused primarily on ACL injury odds ratio (OR), which essentially looked at the odds of an injury occurring after being exposed to an intervention (in this case, an NMT programme).

This study is incredibly practical and provides very actionable insight for creating programmes that can truly reduce risk of ACL injury. It essentially provides us with a checklist of important components to be included in such programmes, which is incredibly helpful for coaches and clinicians that perhaps do not have a lot of resources or access to outside expertise.

The authors acknowledge that injury prevention through NMT is relatively low across the U.S., and even lower in rural areas. This is another reason why the simplicity of this scoring tool is so important and lends itself well to being successfully implemented, even in rural areas. As mentioned previously in the “what they found” section, a score of ≥ 3 out of 11 indicates an effective programme. As such, the ACL injury prevention checklist is recommended, available via this link.
It is also interesting that they found that programmes with more balance, core strengthening, and stretching did not increase their effectiveness. This is also important as it assists coaches and clinicians in deciding which types of exercises to spend more time on, and which can potentially be left out so that efficiency is maximised and results are still positive. When working with groups and younger athletes, simplicity is an asset rather than a detriment.