What are the most effective strategies for preventing spine injuries in athletes?

Athletes need to be strong and well prepared for the demands of their sport, by understanding what type of demands are placed on their body, such as lumbar endurance, coordination of lumbo-pelvic movement, and postural control. These factors should be taken into account when creating effective strategies for training.
 
Transcript: "Athletes need to be strong and they need to be well prepared for the demands of their sport. There are many different types of sports which place many different types of demands on the body. Repetitive strain versus frequency of games or competition versus intensity of training versus phase of the season. So the effective strategies are first of all understanding what type of demands are placed on the spine during the sport and then what levels of intensity ebb and flow during the season. Once you understand that there are certain basic things that you can look at such as the lumbar endurance, the Soroson's test where we effectively ask the individual to support their body weight for a given period of time and there are certain benchmarks. So they would be lying face down and supporting themselves from the pelvis up in an extended position. That would be one example. Another would be coordination of lumbopelvic movement. Do they have good postural control? Those would be some of the key things we would want to look at. And then we would look at how the lumbar spine can expand."