David Potach and Erik Meira – Sport Injury Prevention Anatomy

I may not be the only one, but strength and conditioning and specific running focused exercises is something I feel I endeavour to do more often, better and add variety to.

The most part of the Sport Injury Prevention Anatomy book centres on exercises to incorporate into an injury prevention programme, highlighting specific sports to which the exercise is particularly applicable.

There is a simple introduction centred around injury principles and mechanisms and this was followed quickly by clear, concise information on movement descriptions, explanations of muscle contractions such as concentric and eccentric contraction and biomechanics of movement.

The mainstay of the book is broken down into chapters that focus on individual anatomical regions for example the knee or hip. Clear descriptions of each region including muscles and relevant anatomy and function are complemented by detailed diagrams. Common injuries are followed by a variety of exercises.

The exercises are clearly described with again, great diagrams, which muscles are the focus of the exercise and highlighting the preventative focus for that exercise along with sports it might be particularly applicable.

The book covers the whole body and is not specific to running injury prevention per se so I opted to trial some of the lower limb exercises that mentioned running injury prevention as the focus.

Many exercises are ones that I incorporate into my strength and conditioning routine regularly so I added new ones, centred around ankle and foot exercises – an area I can neglect in favour of more power focused muscles such as quads, but having injured my posterior tibialis last year an area I perhaps shouldn’t neglect!

Following the exercises was very easy given the diagrams and written step by step movements. The inversion/ eversion resistance band exercises were great and I tried to heel walk regularly around the house and garden barefoot to make habits from simple injury prevention steps.

It’s been about a month now of regularly undertaking these and with a month to go to the first of my spring events and with trails becoming more challenging with mud I hope the improved strength and injury prevention exercises will help keep me injury free. The proof, so they say, will be in the pudding!

Review by Helen Williams

Sport Injury Prevention Anatomy by David Potach and Erik Meira
Click here to view the book.

Pros
✅ Injury prevention
✅ Clear anatomical diagrams
✅ Step-by-step exercises