From the Elite to the Everyday: Bringing AFLW’s Injury Prevention Success to Your Team
- Rebecca Brown
- May 20
- 2 min read
Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) injuries are a big problem in women’s sport — and AFLW leads the world in one of the worst ways. Women playing elite footy are six times more likely to tear their ACL than men. It's a confronting stat, but it sparked a much-needed response.
Enter Prep to Play PRO — an injury-prevention program designed specifically for women’s football, built by experts, physios, coaches, and athletes, and now used by 9 out of 10 AFLW clubs.
What Is Prep to Play?
It’s not just a warm-up — it’s a full-spectrum injury-prevention and performance strategy.
Prep to Play PRO includes:
Movement training (jumping, landing, cutting, deceleration)
Footy-specific skills (ground balls, tackling)
Strength and conditioning sessions
Athlete and coach education
How Was It Developed?
The program followed a rigorous 7-step co-design process to ensure it was effective, realistic, and player-focused:
Gain support from the AFL — injury prevention became an official organisational priority.
Review the evidence — including video analysis of AFLW ACL injuries.
Consult experts — physiotherapists, S&C coaches, and elite team staff.
Co-create the program — through national focus groups and concept mapping.
Test for feasibility — trialled in the 2019 AFLW pre-season.
Evaluate against theory — using the RE-AIM framework to check for real-world impact.
Get feedback from users — AFLW clubs shared what worked and what needed refining.
This approach meant the program was built with end-users, not just handed down to them.
Built on Real Injury Data
To make it meaningful, the team reviewed actual ACL injuries from AFLW games. They found:
50% occurred during side-stepping
30% during single-leg deceleration
20% during landing
70% involved indirect contact
These insights shaped the drills and skill progressions — no guesswork, no generic programs.
What Community Sport Can Learn
Whether you coach under-14s or work with adult players, here’s what you can apply:
✅ Make it sport-specific — injury prevention should reflect the movements your athletes actually perform.
✅ Embed it in training — don’t treat it as an optional warm-up.
✅ Educate your athletes — understanding why builds buy-in.
✅ Tailor it to your environment — flexibility is key, especially for part-time players.
Prep to Play PRO proves that injury prevention doesn’t need to be boring, clinical, or time-consuming — it just needs to be designed with people in mind.
From elite AFLW to grassroots clubs, the message is clear: stronger, safer sport starts with smarter systems.
References:
Bruder, A. M., Donaldson, A., Mosler, A. B., Patterson, B. E., Haberfield, M., Mentiplay, B. F., Clifton, P., Livingstone, N. D., OAM, & Crossley, K. M. (2023). Creating Prep to Play PRO for women playing elite Australian football: A how-to guide for developing injury-prevention programs. Journal of sport and health science, 12(1), 130–138. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jshs.2021.09.003
Paquette, C. (2022, January 5). AFLW full team rosters for 2022 season. The Women's Game. https://thewomensgame.com/news/aflw-full-team-rosters-for-2022-season-574327
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