Conditioning and prevention are teammates. As conditioning goes up, often times the risk of injury goes down. Having a heightened sense of your body′s relative position and improving your ability to move with agility will help prevent injuries.
The ESP of Conditioning: Proprioception
With this increased muscle conditioning comes proprioception. Proprioception is that perception provided by sensory nerve terminals within muscles and tendons that tell the brain about the position and movement of the body. Having a sense of where your joint is helps, and it is why some players never hurt their knees. This is in part because they know where their knee is in space in relation to other objects. They don′t leave it exposed, sticking it out of the football pile-up, for example, to get shattered. In skiing, proprioceptive athletes give and fall when they feel the possibility of tension starting in the knee. The old adage that knowing how to fall is as important as knowing how to stay up is correct. If you are a beginning skier, remember to spend some time practicing how to fall safely on the ski slope.
This is a section from Dr. Jack E, Jensen’s book The One Stop Knee Shop. Read the next section Preventing Knee Injuries by Improving Agility.