From “Injury Prevention” to “Injury Mitigation”: A More Honest Approach to Athlete Health

When I first started coaching, injury prevention was the buzzword. Every conference, every article, every social media post was pushing the idea that if you followed this warm-up, that strength plan or this stability routine, you could somehow “prevent” injuries. It sounded great. It was marketable. It made everyone feel in control.

But over the last few years, and through working with international netballers, professional track athletes and countless youth players. I’ve moved away from that phrase entirely. Why? Because it isn’t true.

We cannot prevent injuries.

Not completely. Not reliably. Not honestly.

Sport is chaotic, fast, unpredictable and full of variables you can’t control: contact, collisions, fatigue, decision-making under pressure, landing mechanics that change because an opponent nudges you or your foot clips the line. As coaches we cannot wrap an athlete in bubble wrap and still expect them to compete at the top level.

What we can do, what I focus on now, is injury mitigation. That means reducing the likelihood and reducing the severity. It means preparing athletes to better tolerate the chaos of their sport. It means developing the physical qualities that give them a bigger “buffer” when things go wrong.

Injury mitigation is built on:

• Robust strength (especially in the lower body, trunk and supporting muscles)

• High-speed movement exposure (because the body must be conditioned for the demands it will face)

• Agility, braking and change-of-direction proficiency

• Landing mechanics trained under fatigue and pressure

• Consistent workload management, not sudden spikes

• Smart preparation and recovery habits

  
  

This isn’t a guarantee, it’s a strategy. You can minimise risk. You can prepare the body. You can build resilience. But you cannot promise prevention and anyone who does is selling an illusion.

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The Truth: If You Never Want to Get Injured… Don’t Play Sport

Here’s the uncomfortable part that nobody likes to say out loud:

If you truly don’t want to get injured, the only guaranteed solution is simple - don’t play sport.

If you step onto a court, a field, a track or a pitch, the risk goes up.

Every jump adds risk. Every cut, every sprint, every contest, every change of direction adds risk.

That risk is part of what makes sport competitive, thrilling, emotional and meaningful. You are pushing your body beyond normal daily limits; that’s the point. And anything pushed close to its limits carries risk.

This doesn’t mean we shrug our shoulders and accept injuries as fate. It means we approach the problem with maturity instead of fantasy.

We can mitigate. We can prepare. We can strengthen. We can educate athletes to move better, train smarter, and build robustness. We can dramatically improve durability, availability and resilience.

But we cannot promise perfection. And we should stop pretending we can.

In summary, the shift from “injury prevention” to “injury mitigation” is not just semantic, it is grounded in established sports science. Research consistently shows that injury risk in sport is multifactorial, influenced by a dynamic interaction of intrinsic factors (strength, mobility, previous injury history, neuromuscular control) and extrinsic factors (match demands, opponent contact, environmental conditions and systemic fatigue).

Because these variables cannot be fully controlled, true prevention is scientifically implausible. However, high-quality evidence demonstrates that targeted interventions such as structured strength training, progressive plyometrics, exposure to high-speed running, change-of-direction training and well-managed workload progression can significantly reduce both injury incidence and injury severity across team sports.

Therefore, an honest evidence-aligned approach recognises that while sport will always carry inherent risk, comprehensive physical preparation and intelligent training design enable athletes to better tolerate the unpredictable nature of competition. Injury can never be eliminated, but its likelihood and consequences can be meaningfully mitigated through robust, scientifically informed practice.

Remember: we can prepare your body for chaos, but we can’t stop your opponent from doing something ridiculous that makes you question all your life choices.