Deceleration Training to Prevent ACL Tears

Dear Fellow Coaches and Trainers:

Jerry Shreck

ACL Tear Prevention Program Creator

Hi, I’m Jerry Shreck and I’ve teamed up with Jedd Johnson to share with you a system I have used for the last 10 years that has developed into the most successful ACL tear prevention program available today.

Let me briefly explain how this program came into existence…

In 1996, I was working for a high school as their first Athletic Trainer and Strength Coach.

When I arrived on board, the program was a mess; the first year alone I saw 6 torn ACLs.

I told the school administration that if we could commit all the teams to take up lifting weights that injuries would go down.

They did indeed go down the next year, but 4 athletes still had ACL tears.

This was unacceptable to me so I talked to everyone I could in the field of strength and conditioning and injury prevention for athletes.

I researched everything I could get my hands on, learning about proper warm-ups, jumping drills, and posterior chain training.

I applied everything I learned with my athletes and knee injuries went down again, but to my frustration, we still had 3 ACL tears that year.

I left that high school for an opportunity to work at a Division I University as an Athletic Trainer. Although the athletes were much more developed and skilled, I still saw what I thought was way too many ACL injuries.

So I kept researching and going to every clinic I could afford. By the second year there I was working with teams in the mornings in the weight room as their strength coach (they had no actual strength coach).

At the end of my third year, the University built a new training facility and I was officially hired as their first Head Strength Coach. I knew with my knowledge of the body and talking with just about every strength coach, athletic trainer, and physical therapist on the east coast that there had to be a way to lower the percentages of sports related injuries, like ACL tears.

Injury prevention became my top priority in the weight room!

What I learned was that weight training was not enough. I discovered that the most effective drills involved completely re-training deceleration techniques in order to keep the knee stable and injury free.

Training athletes how to properly decelerate their bodies led me to developing a proven system for Acle Tear Prevention.

That’s right – effective reduction of ACL Tears depends on your ability to Decelerate your body, and that is what we will show you in our program, Deceleration Training to Prevent ACL Tears.

These days, ACL Tears are non-existent with the athletes who go through my program. In fact, in the rare case that an athlete in my school experiences an ACL tear, it is almost always a freshman who has not gone through the program yet.

The bottom line is this: This Program Works for Me and My Athletes, and it Will Work for Yours as Well..

There are two main types of ACL tears:

1. Contact ACL Tears: These result by being hit by some sort of outside force.

For instance, if a soccer player gets taken out by a defender and his/her leg is bent violently, it can tear the ACL.

Or if a Football Lineman gets into a pile and someone rolls onto his leg, it can cause an ACL tear.

Contact ACL Tears are hard to predict and even tougher to prevent.

2. Non-Contact ACL Tears: These result from the athlete’s inability to control his or her body.

Generally, in sports like Soccer, Football, Rugby, Field Hockey, Basketball, and many others, there is a great deal of changes of direction, cutting, angling, and landing on the ground after jumping.

In these types of scenarios, if an athlete is unable to properly control their body, a Non-Contact ACL Tear can take place.

Non-Contact ACL Tears are much more preventable IF you prepare the right way.

Our program, Deceleration Training to Prevent ACL Tears is designed to train athletes to use their lower body correctly.

This brings about two extremely important training results.

By decelerating the right way, can stay injury free while stopping, landing, and decelerating.

Also, with our program, athletes will improve their abilities to produce maximal power for jumping, sprinting, cutting away from defenders, and other athletic movements.

So, what is the right way to decelerate the body?

The proper way to decelerate the body is with the glutes – the powerful muscles in your posterior chain.

Unfortunately, many athletes do not use their glutes well when slowing their bodies down and changing directions, resulting in poor control of their bodies when in motion.

This lack of body control is brought about by three main factors.

Find out more below…

Problem #1: Quad Dominance

In recent years, I am seeing more and more student athletes coming into my University who are Quad Dominant.

Quad Dominance means that the athlete uses his/her Quadriceps muscles as the primary muscle group to decelerate their body.

The problem here is that when the Quadriceps muscles decelerate the body, it puts even more pressure on the ACL to do its job.

Quad Dominant athletes’ knees will often track forward during the deceleration process, creating more stress in the knee, especially on the ACL.

Combine the forward translation of the knee in a Quad Dominant situation with the need to also change directions or veer off at an angle and you have an even riskier situation for the ACL.

Problem #2: Over-Specialization at a Young Age

These days, it is much more common for young athletes to specialize for a given sport.

Whereas only a few years ago, athletes would play several sports throughout the year, now it is not strange to hear of athletes who play just one sport.

To add to this situation, they also play this one sport all year long. For instance, youth soccer players can be seen playing in soccer leagues during the Fall, and then playing Indoor Soccer during the Winter.

Many will play in another league once the weather warms up during the Spring time, and then join a traveling team during their Summer breaks.

All of this specialization can lead to reduction in the tensile strength of the soft tissues, and that means there is an increased risk for athletes to end up with a devastating knee injury like an ACL tear.

Problem #3: Tight Hip Flexors & Weak Gluteal Muscles

The habits of our youth athletes have changed over recent years.

Instead of spending much of their free time playing back yard games like kickball and tag, and having adventures by climbing trees and building forts, many kids spend an inordinate amount of time seated.

Sure, they play sports after school – and they play hard too!

But they also spend all day in classes sitting.

They are sitting down while traveling home from school in the car or on the bus.

And, perhaps the biggest change of all is that these days youth spend a great deal of time either watching TV, using a computer, or just sitting around texting their friends.

Whereas you and I might have played for several hours once we got home or helped our parents with the chores around the house, many of our young athletes are passing the time away sitting down.

Being in the seated position for so much time throughout the day has been found to shorten and tighten the hip flexor muscles, which in turn, sets our athletes up for weak gluteal muscles.

In short, many young athletes do not know how to use the muscles in their butts!

If you have weak glutes, it means that in order to decelerate your body when landing after a jump or changing directions on the court, the Quadriceps muscles will be left to do the majority of the work.

And we already established that decelerating the body with the Quads is bad.

This is where our program, Deceleration Training to Prevent ACL Tears comes in!

Deceleration Training is a step-by-step approach to correcting the major problems that contribute to torn ACL’s: Over-Dominant Quadriceps Muscles and Weak Glutes.

The program begins by first identifying the weaknesses and movement issues the athlete might have and immediately addressing and correcting them.

Then as the program progresses, we build upon these corrections and help the athletes become even better at decelerating their bodies with their glutes.

Soon, this progress helps the athlete develop safer, stronger knees while also becoming more powerful on the field or court.

Read below for more details on how we make this happen…

Phase 1 – Box Deceleration Work:

In this section, you will learn how to use a plyometric box as the first step for teaching an athlete which muscles to emphasize for deceleration.

This is very important because it is here where you can begin to see how the athlete naturally stops their body and you can immediately begin correcting bad habits and developing proper neuromuscular firing patterns.

Skipping this stage will slow the process down and make progress more difficult once you get into the more demanding drills later in the program. We recommend all athletes start here, regardless of experience, in order to establish a baseline as well as to begin developing an understanding of the terminology and the approach that the coach will be using when rolling out the rest of the program.

Phase 2 – Deceleration Stop Positions & 5×5 Drills:

Now, you will discover the three main stopping positions that your athletes must master for proper deceleration of the body.

This is a vital part of the program because most non-contact ACL tears occur when an athlete is starting to decelerate and then change direction. The 5×5 drills will help develop better technique for preventing tears.

You DO NOT want to skip this part of the program because if your athletes are “quad-dominant” (and many are) this is your best opportunity to identify it, correct it, and reduce their risk for ACL tears.

Phase 3 – 5×5 Drills with Defensive and Offensive Take-offs:

In this stage, you will understand exactly how to train proper change of direction skills after the correct deceleration techniques have been learned.

This is a key development skill for your athletes so that they know how to properly position themselves for changes in direction.

Make sure to emphasize correct technique here because in later parts of the program, you will perform the same take-offs but with much more speed.

Phase 4 – Power Runs with Forward Accelerations:

Now that deceleration has been emphasized for several weeks, it is time to improve re-acceleration with Power Runs.

This step in the process is very important because not only will the athletes be less apt to injure themselves, but they will also learn how to re-accelerate more efficiently.

In a game of inches where every second counts, we must be able to stop and go again as quickly and efficiently as possible. This phase will develop this skill very well.

Phase 5 – Power Runs with Defensive & Offensive Take-offs:

At this point in the program, we will take Power Runs to another level and ramp up the speed and directional demands of the sports your athletes compete in.

This is a time to begin challenging your athletes because they must be able to position themselves properly while also being able to think, react, and respond to outside stimulae, which you will provide.

By now, your athletes have developed advanced deceleration skills and are able to change directions much better than in previous weeks, and this will show in the performance against the opposition when it counts the most.

Phase 6 – Direction Power Runs (Drills) & Starting Sprint Out Positions (Variations):

In this section, you will learn exactly how you can increase the challenge level of the drills even further by modifying the starting positions and how your players move down the field or court.

You will be able to continually modify these drills to make them as specific to the sport as possible, without using a ball, stick, or pads. This is where this program gets fun for the athletes.

On top of that, your athletes will truly be able to realize their athletic potential while essentially bullet-proofing their knees, meaning less worry of injury and better concentration on dominating their sport.

• Easy Step-by-Step Coaching Instructions



Jerry and I strive to provide information that anyone can understand and put into action, from the newest of trainers to the most experienced of therapists and practitioners. While we understand advanced terminology, we won’t try to dazzle you with mumbo jumbo. Everything is laid out in a straight-forward way. Even athletes who are training themselves will know exactly what they need to do in order to be successful using our program.







• Adaptable Drills for all Levels of Experience and Development




This program will work for athletes at all levels of competition. I have implemented this with athletes in Junior High, High School, College, and even Professional Football Players. The program is very flexible and can be molded to fit athletes who progress slowly or ones who make leaps and bounds overnight.







• No Major Weight Room Equipment is Needed




You will not have to take a huge chunk out of your budget in order to put our program into action. In fact 95% of this training is done on courts or fields. Any flat surface will do, so you can train your clients and athletes effectively.







• No Huge Commitment of Time



You don’t have to worry about re-writing your entire training program with your athletes in order to implement our ACL Tear Prevention Program. Some of the drills in our program can be easily paired with lifts in the gym in a “super-set” format. Others can be done as part of your general warm-up, or as a segment of your conditioning routines. Your athletes will think they are doing the same old drills, when in fact they are bullet-proofing their knees!

• Simple-to-Follow Training Phases



You will see right away that each phase will build upon what your athletes have developed in the earlier stages. This allows you as a coach to see which athletes need more time at certain stages, and which are ready to move on to more demanding drills.

We hope you are ready to start implementing our program and to begin seeing a huge difference in your athletes’ abilities, while also dramatically reducing their risk for season- and career-shortening knee injuries.

All the best in your training!

Jerry Shreck & Jedd Johnson

Q: I am a new Strength Coach – will I understand everything you tell me?

A: I believe you will have no issues understanding everything in this coaching/training manual. We really tried to put this together using no big physiological terms. The last thing we want you to do is have to go look something up to understand it. If by chance you come across something that you are not fully clear on-you will have full access to contact Jedd or I to answer any question you may have.

Q: I have limited room, will I still be able to do this?

A: Yes, you really won’t need tons of space or equipment. If you are going to be training a large team you will need to accommodate for the size of the team. But the most space you will need is 30-40 yards. I use empty basketball courts or football/soccer fields, but any flat area with a decent flooring/ground would work. I would avoid training on pavement.

Q: I work with top level college athletes. Is this something they can use or are they too advanced and “beyond” this?

A: Trust me they will not be too advanced or beyond this systematic training system. They just probably won’t have to spend as much time learning each training phase.

Q: I am just a personal trainer working out of the trunk of my car, will this work for me?

A: Yes, just find some flat open space at a park or field and you are all set.

Q: I work mainly with kids under 12. Is this something I can use?

A: Depending on the level of athleticism and maturity-yes. I have used these training principles with a youth under 10 soccer team but these were all good players for their age. Young athletes would benefit with this but with my past experiences, only in small doses. Attention levels at younger ages do not last to long.

Q: Jerry, what if some of the athletes don’t catch on as quickly?

A: All athletes learn at different paces. It is well documented in this system not to advance to the next phase until the current one is mastered. It is also OK to go back to a previous phase also if you mistakenly advanced a little to quickly.

Q: How much equipment is needed to run this program?

A: If you are creative then you really don’t need any equipment. A plyo-box and maybe some small cones (3) is all you need, but you could use a stable park bench and water bottles as alternatives.

Q: I suck at taking notes. Will I be able to remember everything on the DVD?

A: The DVD is very easy to follow but we knew some people would also want a manual to take to the field or courts, so we developed both.

Q: I work with older clients who just like back yard pastimes. Will this work for them?

A: This program was developed for athletes. If your older client plays in an adult league sport with stop and go, change of direction type of movements; then yes it would work for them. If they are playing horse shoes, then this really would not be for them.

Jerry Shreck

Jerry has been in the strength field for the past 16 years and a Division I Head Strength Coach for the
past 12 years. He has multiple certifications and is a licensed Athletic Trainer. He presents at numerous
clinics, has a monthly fitness segment for a local TV station, and is sought out by other professionals for
his injury prevention techniques.

Jedd Johnson

Jedd is certified through the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) as a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist or CSCS. I have been an active member
since 2001 and have spoken at many NSCA clinics in Pennsylvania on athletic strength development. I am excited to release this product because I feel it will be very helpful for athletes towards preventing serious injuries.