Neuromuscular training is exercise that trains how players move, not only how strong or fit they are. In team sports it usually takes the form of a structured warm-up: easy running with changes of direction, landing and balance work with the knee kept over the toes, a little strength work, then faster running with planting, cutting and bounding. The best-known example is the FIFA 11+, which started in football and has been tested in basketball.
Why coaches use it
Because it is one of the best-supported things a coach can do for injury risk. A 2015 meta-analysis by Emery and colleagues of 25 studies in youth team sports found that these programmes, mostly delivered as the warm-up, reduced lower-extremity injuries by about a third. In basketball, Emery’s 2007 trial with 920 high school players and Longo’s 2012 trial of the 11+ with young club players both found fewer injuries.
The catch is consistency. The tested programmes ran about 15 to 20 minutes, at least twice a week, and the main problem the meta-analysis names is teams that stop doing them.
How it is done
- Knee over toe. The cue in every part: the knee never buckles inward.
- Soft landings. On the balls of the feet, hips and knees bent.
- Balance. Single-leg stance and passing, the part most coaches skip.
- Plant and cut last. Faster running once players are warm.
Our library has an adapted, shortened injury-prevention warm-up, and three drills built from its parts: jump and land, hop and stick and plant, cut and bound. The shortened version has not been tested on its own. Our guide to warm-up drills has the details.