Why Do I Need Executive Personal Branding

Why Do I Need Executive Personal Branding As a senior level professional, you’ve almost certainly heard of personal branding. Implementing it into your professional life, however, is a very different story. The idea of establishing and maintaining a personal brand is very new after all, having arrived on the coat tails of the Internet and the rest of today’s technology. If you’ve spent a considerable amount of time assuming  c-level  personal branding  isn’t worth your time, you  may want to reconsider! This is a very important aspect of your professional career, for a few significant reasons. Personal Branding Sets You Apart While this line sounds cliché, it is very much the truth. Consider these questions: How do you stack up against your competitors? Would your degree(s) be enough to convince companies to hire you instead of someone else? Thousands of other people hold the exact same academic achievements as you. Plus, the longer you’ve been out of school, the less your academic career matters. Its the sad reality that many people face. Rather than focusing on this, look back on the other accomplishments you’ve earned within your field. Think about who you are as a executive  and  a person.  Personal  branding  for  senior  level  managers  involves getting to the meat of these two concepts. It involves presenting  your positive qualities and expertise in a way that appeals much more readily to those in charge of hiring you. You’ll Experience a Quality Jump with Your Job Search Naturally, focusing on your skills and personal talents boosts your own self image. This means you will become far less likely to settle for just any position that matches your skill set. You will gradually start to approach your job search in a different way as your personal brand gains more and more attention. Once this happens, it will enable you to think about what you  really  want from a company and what conditions you are not willing to deal with. As a result, you will start to push forward with your professional life and only accept those who meet your newfound standards. If the idea of constant professional growth appeals to you, then you’ll want to put together your personal brand as soon as possible. Your Personal Brand Gains You More Benefits and Professional Success Simply put, a personal brand boosts your chances of being hired. It creates a clear picture of your strengths and what you can offer a company, which will appeal quickly to employers. If you’re currently struggling with your job search, a personal brand may help you finally find the position you’ve been so diligently seeking in ways you could never have anticipated!

Why Choose Professional Resume Writing Services Delhi?

Why Choose Professional Resume Writing Services Delhi?Job seekers across the globe are fast realizing the benefits of professional resume writing services Delhi. Relocating to a new place or city is not an easy task. It takes a lot of effort and patience in order to have the entire map ready and prepared for the employees. In order to do this job, the requirement of writing of the resumes and the cover letters also become important.It is expected that an employee will need to come to know about the entire needs and requirements of the company. Then writing these needs in the resumes and the cover letters is not a bad idea. Job seekers or the employers will know what exactly are the requirements of the job that they are looking for. The employer will also know the qualities and skills of the candidate.If the employer needs to get the accurate information in the resume, it is not easy to do it. There are many things that are required in order to be prepared by a professional resume and the cover letters. Job seekers can send the resume to a firm that offers professional resume writing services. There are various benefits in hiring this firm.For professionals who are in the professional resume writing business, there are various benefits that can be derived from hiring a firm that offers these services. For instance, they will be able to save a lot of time and effort. In hiring them, the employer will also get the chance to choose the proper form and quality of the resumes. Job seekers will not have to worry about the necessary writing and there will not be any difficulty for job seekers to compose the resumes.Also, there will be no need for the job seekers to spend a lot of money for the formal education. Moreover, job seekers will be aware that the amount of the fee will also depend on the type of resume that is required by the employer. If the employer requires for resume that is in a formal format, the client will be asked to pay the amount depending on the fo rm of the resume. If the employer requires for resume that is basic and informal, then the client will have to pay the amount depending on the time that has to be spent in composing the resume. Job seekers will not have to worry about the costs when hiring this professional resume writing service.In order to look professional, job seekers need to hire a professional resume writing service. There are some firms that offer templates and the arrangements that make their resumes more professional. Besides, most of the firms provide advice and suggestions to job seekers.Another advantage that job seekers can get from hiring these firms is the affordable rates. The rates can be affordable if the job seeker is looking for a good firm that is trustworthy and reliable. There are some firms that provide affordable rates because they will be providing the service and have adequate expertise. Moreover, job seekers have the option of choosing the form of the resume that they require.

Top Guide of Resume for Bank Teller

Top Guide of Resume for Bank Teller You should bank on more than just your abilities and experience to have a wonderful job. Some of the main skills to reveal case are, Professional Experience Interested in turning into a bank teller, and don't have any prior experience, therefore do not fear. Irrespective of your degree of job experience, your resume structure is important to making your application stick out. The very first step is to choose the form of resume that you prefer to create, and the way it will incorporate your preceding experience, job history and strong points, while reflecting the demands of the jobs applied for. Resume for Bank Teller - Overview Our resume builder provides you with tips and examples about how to compose your resume summary. Use the bank teller resumes found on the internet to create your resume so as to find a notion of the right format. Furthermore there are lots of list of internet templates on the internet. Job at your organization an d applicable skills in fulltime from a financial institution teller cover letter acts as a doctor up any guidelines. The bank teller position is just one of fantastic significance and responsibility. In all likelihood, the interviewer will want to learn how you would take care of an unhappy patron. Bank tellers use computers during their shift, which permits them to deliver services to patrons in a way that is fast and productive. In many instances, the bank teller is the key contact for patrons. Up in Arms About Resume for Bank Teller? Your very first contact with a hiring manager about a possible job must truly make a fantastic impression. Somewhere in their job description, the bank will probably list the kinds of qualities they're searching for in a teller. One of the absolute most excellent strategies to decide on what you need to include on your resume is to discover what the prospective employer are seeking in your resume. Attempt to bring the duties that the specif ic job is seeking. Where to Find Resume for Bank Teller A bank usually deals with a big customer base. A teller must thus have complete grasp of the banking solutions, and be in a position to help the clients and suggest them to get services or policies according to their requirement. The largest plus with a resume template is that you may download and customize with relevant info and details to be a symbol of your candidature at a coming interview for a work profile in the banking sector. If you're planning to apply to get a new job, you should check an effective Bank Teller resume sample. To acquire the job for a bank teller, it is quite essential that you design a strong resume.

Manage your bosss schedule like a pro

Manage your bosss schedule like a proWhen youre a personal assistant, scheduling your boss day to run as smoothly as possible is an integral part of your job. A great assistant enayas that the flow of appointments and meetings make sense and leaves enough time to accomplish quality work on all projects.Here are some key strategies for managing two schedules your bosss and your own.Share a calendar.If youre leise maintaining separate work calendars, youre making life unnecessarily complicated. Use a program like Google Calendar to get you and your bosss appointments, meetings, and days off on one shared, living document. There, you both can add, edit, and sync things seamlessly so no events through the cracks. Shell know when youre out for a dentist appointment and wont wonder where you are, and youll know that shes working from home on Friday so you wont schedule any in-person meetings. When you meet with your boss, make sure to ask about the following weeks obligations and update yo ur shared calendar as needed.Leave space every day.Scheduling effectively is not just about making sure every meeting and phone call fits into the day. Its also about leaving chunks of dedicated time for your boss to do what he or she needs to accomplishor even what he may have to do. Try not to book anything back-to-back without giving him a breather. Allow her some dedicated work time to actually get things done.Dont ersatzdarsteller book.Double booking obligations just leads to unnecessary stress and occasional embarrassment for both your boss and you. Dont do it. If you accidentally say yes to a meeting and find out theres something else slotted for the time, reschedule right away with apologies.Be the weather/traffic person.If your boss has off-site meetings, make sure to map out routes to unfamiliar places. Keep an eye on traffic reports to avoid any unseen delays or catastrophes. Keep an eye on the weather report too, since storms will affect both what your boss wears and how fast shes able to get where she needs to go.Keep an eye on the clock.You may have scheduled a meeting to fit within a specific time window, but meetings can easily go over time when people dont stick to an agenda.Be mindful of the clock to ensure that a meeting never runs late or bleeds into the next scheduled task. Dont let your boss get sidetracked by an overly chatty appointment. Its your job to remind him that he has another appointment or task on the docket.If a particularly important meeting cannot be halted so easily, snap into action to reconfigure the rest of the day. Figure out what other entries on the schedule can be moved around or even canceled to avoid wasting a minute of anyones time.Leave time for lunch.Getting the days work done may come first on any schedule, but you need to keep your tanks well-fueled to get you and your boss through your busy day. That means leaving some time in the schedule for a proper lunch. Ask your boss at what time of day she prefers to e at, and then block off at least 30 minutes in your shared calendar where she cant be disturbed. Ideally, youll take your lunch break during this same window.Find a system that works for both of you.Make sure you get a sense of how your boss likes to prioritize duties and structure his day. If you ever have a question about which obligation is more important, just ask. Eventually, youll develop a shorthand for working with each other that will keep both of you on schedule.

The #1 Thing Employers Miss When They Build A Brand

The 1 Thing Employers Miss When They Build A Brand While fax machines and voicemail are becoming obsolete in the workplace, employer branding is moving in the opposite direction. Now, more than ever, employer branding is a crucial part of companies growth and survival. Not only does it play a key role in how consumers view companies, but it also largely dictates how companies will fare in the recruiting process.While fruchtwein employers are well-aware of the importance of employer branding (...and if theyre bedrngnis, they may be in for a rude awakening), many cant quite figure out what their strategy if they even have on at all should be.Thats why weve checked in with Crystal Miller Lay, whosejobit is to help employers develop a brand that resonates. As an employer branding strategist, she knows whats up and shes been kind enough to share her insight on what companies need to focus onfruchtweinwhen building a brand, what employer branding might look like in 5 years, and the 1 th ing employers miss when they build a brand.Fairygodboss Why is employer branding more important now than ever?Crystal Miller LayBranding is psychology. Its science and art woven together to embody reputation and promise. Frequently we read articles that position branding being more important now than times past, be it consumer or employer branding. Im not koranvers I fully agree with that.I think whats really happening is the marketing of brands, both employer and consumer, are becoming more sophisticated and prevalent. As it does, people become more aware of brand identity and the reputations tied to them. It certainly reduces the grace and margin for error those managing brand have, but Im not really sure it makes it any more important to ensure your brand is meticulously maintained, relatable and accurately represented. We buy brands. Rarely do you hear people say theyre buying bandages, they buyband-aids.Same with tissues we more often hearKleenex.Those are brands. But its not t he name people care about, its the promise thats been created behind them and instilled into the public. We dont care about what things and companies arecalled, per-say we care about what theyre supposed todofor us the impact theyre able to have in our lives and the extent to which we believe in a brands promise to fulfill our needs, to make the desired impact, dictates their reputation and subsequent brand strength.Which leads intothe 1 thing employers miss when they build an employer brand building a strong, reputable brand depends on sound employee/candidate psychology. Employer Branding is psychology... focused on those that currently work for an employer, and those that want to (candidates). Yet employers most often focus on themselves, what the employer wants, what the employer needs when they need to be focused on how they can improve the lives and address the needs of their employees.FGB What forms of communication do you think are most important for employer brands?CMLWhen it comes to forms of communication by employer brands, your audience should be your guide. How do they like to communicate? Where do they spend time? EB managers and teams should be putting together a strong mix of messages in the mediums embraced by their audiences, on the channels they frequent (i.e. social media, publications, email, etc). In terms of rich media, a well designed video can be incredibly impactful and a nice augment to written copy.For companies that have limited resources, what is the first / most important thing tothink about?CMLThe most important thing to think about is actually something that can be done regardless of the size of your budget what IS your brand identity? What can you actually promise candidates and deliver on once theyre employees? How will working for you impact their lives, their career development, relationships and sense of social responsibility? Do not answer these questions aspirationally. What are the answers based on who you are now to day. If theyre not where they need to be, you can acknowledge that and let the world know your plan to improve it but you have to act on whatever you share or your reputation in the market will suffer. Employer brand communication should be reflective of your overarching organization - the promises you make as an employer on this level should be generally applicable across the organization. Tweaks and adjustments to EB messages should be made to address cultural differences across regions. Some organizations do segment by age group and/or gender, to address differences in each of these groups in conversational tone and style. Otherwise, the majority of segmentation is done at the recruitment marketing level, where separation can and should be done by job family, locations and level. Be careful of creating a special segments for diversity groups - too often its only one segment thats created, lumping diversity initiatives into one communication group, creating further teilen rather than the inclusion that should be the goal.FGB How at all do you think employer brand communication needs to be segmented? Is there a different way to communicate with women than with men?CMLWhen it comes to communicating with women, its not just what issaid, but what is binnenseen. Too often, EB teams put a slew of women on their career sites, in stock photography or in group employee photos - but when you look at the bios shared... its quite often about men. Men in leadership ranks shared on the about us or meet our team pages, men in press releases about promotions, men in impactful employee highlights. Mix it up. Share photos and stories of people at various ranks. Make equal representation a goal, if not a commitment... so women have an equal opportunity to see themselves reflected in the images and stories about employees in your company. FGB Which companies do EB really well?CMLI might be a touch biased having worked with them, but I loveATTs employer branding. Its reflecti ve of who they are as an organization, has a fantastic dedication to inclusion, they communicate to candidates using their own technologies (you can search for jobs right from your TV as a U-Verse customer), share stories across rank and job families and LifeatATT was, and still is, one of the pioneers in the social space. Its fully adopted and embraced by employees because they tell stories of who they are not who they want people to believe they could be. GE is another great example of amazing employer brand storytelling and for an example of what can be done on a very modest EB budget, look at American Heart Association. Their employees have fully embraced their messages, are huge advocates of the brand and they have built a very effective grassroots program.FGB What will EB look like in 5 years?CMLI really enjoy the see the future questions... mostly because were so often wrong I jest, but in all seriousness, five years from now I expect to see more sophistication in employer br anding a better grasp on the metrics needed to measure EB efficacy and impact, richer storytelling and some headway into predictive analytics in employer branding. And thats just for starters. We are still decades (plural) behind our consumer brand counterparts theres a lot of ground to cover and explore. Thats exciting for people like me who have focused their career in this fascinating intersection of HR/TA and marketing... and its a fantastic opportunity for all companies committed to building their employer brands.Fairygodboss is committed to improving the workplace and lives of women.Join us by reviewing your employer

3 Easy Tricks to Help You Fall in Love With Your Job Again

3 Easy Tricks to Help You Fall in Love With Your Job Again Article by Pete WheelanTrying to climb the corporate ladder? Warning It can be a dangerous distraction. Promotions dont always increase your job satisfaction or nurture your passions. In fact, the added responsibility can end up driving you further away from finding meaning in your work because youre too busy to even consider it.Americans in particular are under immense pressure to be chronically busy. Last year, 55 percent of the U.S. workforce left 658 million vacation days unused. If you value advancement but never figure out whether moving up will help you bring your passions to play in what you do, you might lose all sense of purpose. This is not an uncommon herausforderung fewer than 20 percent of leaders of organizations feel passionate about their individual purpose, and many of them cant even articulate what that purpose is.How do you find the passion that can fuel you through distrac tions and an exhausting pace?1. Note How Challenges Make You FeelEven if you love your job, some aspects of it will be difficult or unpleasant.As the saying goes, thats why its called work. You need to figure out how those challenges make you feel. Are the parts you hate the norm or the outliers?Connecting your work to a larger personal goal can help you avoid procrastination or laziness. Finding a job youre so passionate about that every task seems easy isnt a bad idea, but its an awfully high bar to clear. Its important to feel that the obstacles ahead of you are worth overcoming for reasons beyond a paycheck.To gauge how Im feeling about my daily challenges, I use a simple 22 matrix high or low energy and positive or negative mood. High/positive (in the zone) or low/positive (calm and relaxed) are the spaces I want to be in as often as possible. Something I feel highly energetic and positive about is a passion, whereas something I feel highly energetic but negative about is typic ally a major stressor. By consciously assessing patterns that emerge, I can identify the aspects I want to adjust or recalibrate.If youre feeling low energy and negative but need to push through, try my solution I head to an email folder I have labeled Fuel, where I save emails from grateful employees, students, and satisfied customers. These inspire me by reminding me why I do what I do to have a positive, tangible impact on the lives of students by helping them unlock their potential.2. Actively Create Opportunities to ReflectAt the end of each day or each project, evaluate how you feel about the way you spent your time. You probably wont be exuberant and energized every single day, but if you never feel that way or regularly feel frustrated and tired, you could look for a new job or you could draw on a deeper commitment to impact a broader big-picture goal that is deeply and personally meaningful to you.Reflecting in this way will help you see patterns of likes and dislikes, whic h will help you navigate a maze of opportunities to find the kind of future you want for yourself. In one study demonstrating this phenomenon, adults participating in a puzzle-solving game performed 18 percent better than their peers on consecutive attempts when they were given time to reflect on their past performance. This method of reflection has helped me make wiser career pivots.Case in point Over the course of my career, Ive worked for six companies. During three of those five job transitions, I took several months off to reflect on my passions and evaluate whether my next job would align with them. Often, the next opportunity I pursued meant taking a reduction in pay, level of responsibility, or title all things conventional wisdom advises against.When I left my job as a management consultant to start my own company, I traded a big salary, an office, and an executive assistant for working from my apartment with my cofounder unsupported and essentially without pay.By reflecti ng on my purpose, though, I found ways to calibrate my passions with what I would be doing for a living. This understanding allowed me to immerse myself in my work without reservations, even when making a zur seite hin gelegen move. With that kind of enthusiasm, the pay raises and promotions followed naturally.3. Tap Into Your Inner Circle for a Reality CheckAsk your partner, friends or family members for candid feedback about their perceptions of how you feel about your career and what your passions are. What topics do they frequently see you genuinely excited to discuss? When do they see you light up and get into a flow?You might think everything is going fine, but our loved ones are often better at understanding what makes us tick than we are. Take advantage of their years of knowing you to find out whether they see your passions lining up with your work.For example, say you really want to be excited about a promotion you recently earned, but instead youre feeling wary and anxiou s. Your close friends might be able to help you be more honest with yourself and figure out where the disconnect lies.Although you cant change the world or your life every day, by integrating your passions into your work using these strategies, you can consistently take incremental steps in the right direction. If you dedicate yourself to finding your passion and follow it wherever it leads youll never leave your desk at the end of the day wishing things were different.A version of this article originally appeared on SUCCESS.com.Pete Wheelan, CEO of InsideTrack, has dedicated his career to leading mission-driven, high-growth companies focused on helping individuals live up to their full potential. Before joining InsideTrack, he served as chief operating officer and chief revenue officer at Blurb, a groundbreaking leader in unleashing creative expression through self-published books.

Research into Kids Knees Could Prevent ACL Tears

Research into Kids Knees Could Prevent ACL Tears Research into Kids Knees Could Prevent ACL Tears Research into Kids Knees Could Prevent ACL TearsEvery fall football fans keep an eye on the news to watch for season-ending knee injuries. Over the last few years, torn anterior cruciate ligaments ended the seasons of stars such as Julian Edelman, Deshaun Watson, and Carson Wentz. While these injuries are high profile, the athletes most likely to suffer an ACL injury are the so-called pony-tailed hooligans. In the United States, the highest incidence of ACL injury is to females 14 to 17 years old, many of whom are soccer players. In fact, females of all ages suffer these knee injuries between two and seven times mora frequently than males.Read ASMEs Top Story Air Taxi Aces Test FlightKatie Kitchen, a research assistant at Cincinnati Childrens Hospital Medical Center, instructs a high school soccer player to perform a squat for a 3-D motion analysis assessment.Surgery is often required to repair torn ACLs, and surgeons are working with mechanical engineers to better understand the physiology of childrens knees in order to better repair the injuries, or avert them entirely. ansicht engineers and biomechanics specialists are applying techniques normally reserved for hard materials like steel to soft tissue.Ellen Arruda, a professor of mechanical and biomedical engineering at the University of Michigan, has research interests ranging from mechanical behavior of materials including polymers, elastomers, and soft tissue to tissue engineering of tendon and muscle constructs and to modeling of growth and functional adaptation in soft tissue. But she also collaborates with surgeons who conduct ACL reconstructions.The most often cited reason for the increase in these injuries is an increase in the number of children playing sports such as soccer and basketball, year-round, sometimes on multiple teams at once, she said.Read ur Readers Pick YouTube Star Goes Viral with Glitter BombGreg Myer knows the value of engineers to surgeons. Myer is a biomechanist who serves as director of research at the Human Performance Laboratory for the Division of Sports Medicine at Cincinnati Childrens Hospital Medical Center, and he holds a position at the College of Medicine at the University of Cincinnati.Mechanical engineers can do many things to support the surgery, the first being helping surgeons select the correct ligament graft, Myer said. But Myer is also studying the way young athletes zulauf and jump and kick to find ways to learn how ligaments can be spared from excess stress to begin with.Were working on the prevention side, he said.The map of the knee looks more like a complicated interstate highway interchange than a simple joint, with four bones, thigh and calf muscles, bits of cartilage, and the meniscus that cushions the bones. Ligaments thread around and between the bones to keep the femur, tibia, fibula, and patella togetherbei and play a critical role in stabilizing the joint during loading.The ligaments include the posterior cruciate ligament, the medial collateral ligament, and the lateral collateral ligament. But the anterior cruciate ligament threads through the middle of the joint, making it difficult to see and susceptible to injury. Its the most-often torn ligament in the knee and in sports. Typically, the ACL is injured during landings that involve rapid deceleration and direction change.Full tears of the ligament tissue require complete surgical replacement if a return to physical activities is desired.Theres a lot of debate over the best graft for this, Myer said. The patella tendon that attaches the tibia to the kneecap is a common choice, and the hamstring tendon has increased in popularity, and then theres also the allograft from a cadaver.Listen to the All-New ASME TechCast podcast Innovations in Biomaterials Create New Roles for EngineersCurrent methods of ACL replacement generally work well, as they stabilize the knee and allow people to return to sports. But the graft replacement technique doesnt work for everyone, especially kids because theyre still growing. Grafts from a cadaver have the highest failure rates, with estimates of about 20 percent.We think the grafts are too stiff, Arruda said. Its usually an adult cadaver graft going into a young child, so its overdesigned for that child in terms of stiffness.The ideal replacement for a torn ACL restores native anatomy and function to the knee. Mounting evidence, however, suggests current strategies alter the biomechanics of the joint.Instabilities are thought to develop over time through a graft tissue that becomes more lax than the native tissue through loosening, mechanical degradation, or both.As a result, young athletes are at a greatly increased risk for a second ACL injury. Nearly one in four youths who return to high-risk sports sustain another ACL injury at some point in their career. For patients younger than 20, the increased ri sk for sustaining an ACL graft rupture is as high as threefold, with the risk higher for females than males.Read More on Innovation Drone Deploys in Just Minutes but Flies for HoursEngineers are working with physicians, surgeons, and other healthcare professionals to better understand the biomechanics of ACL injury and how to repair it more permanently.Mechanical engineers can help with the tensile strength of the graft and help us learn how the graft degrades over time following the reconstruction and before it starts to build back up in strength, Myer said. From the surgeons standpoint, helping them understand the best grafts is probably the most direct link to helping in their selection for reconstruction.Experiment and SimulationKaitlyn Mallett saw this first hand, as she previously worked as a graduate student research assistant in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan. With Arruda as her advisor, she went on to get her doctorate in mechanical e ngineering. Her dissertation research involved experimentally characterizing native ACL and replacement grafts to define their mechanical properties.Its a challenge researchers have been grappling with for decades.The ACL is actually quite complex, Mallett said. Its made up of two different sections that twist on each other, and as you flex the knee, it twists and untwists, but its always taut. Its very complicated to get the mechanical properties without relieving that tension.Understanding the relationship between the various parts of the knee requires a combination of experiments to characterize the mechanical properties of the tissues and plugging those values into a computer models that employ finite element analysis to simulate the stresses that running, jumping, and landing place on the joint. Even the model is informed with clinical data.The model starts with an MRI of the knee, Arruda said. We convert that into a finite element mesh and translate that from the MRI data file to volumetric elements used in finite elements. That involves taking every slice of the MRI and finding the outline of each tissue in the knee. We call that segmenting the knee.The model is made of elements that are deformable, so you create the overall geometry and break it into elements and then apply properties to each section, Mallett added.Read More on Bioengineering The Engineering Behind Brain ResearchTo obtain the data on the mechanical properties of the tissues, Mallett took donated tissue and cut out all the soft tissue except for the ACL. She aligned the ACL in a well-known loading state and then subjected it to tests to provide the mechanical properties needed for a computational model.Some of this may sound like working with traditional engineering materials, but Mallett said there are important differences. Ligament tissue doesnt display co-linear behavior like steel in the linear regime. The ACL has several different kinds of parts to it that dont behave the same way .Its also non-linear, meaning it doesnt exhibit a one-to-one response when strained. Soft tissue like ACL is compliant and begins to stiffen as you pull on it because it has a crimp in the fiber that straightens out.That nonlinearity is difficult to capture, Mallett said.It also exhibits a time-dependent response. If you pull it more quickly, it will behave differently than if you pull it slowly. By taking a large number of samples and pulling them to a certain distance, I was able to get the stress-strain curve, she said.Risk FactorsExperimental biomechanics is also helping inform the way post-surgery rehabilitation is conducted. Theory says rehabilitation after ACL reconstruction should focus on addressing the underlying neuromuscular problems that led to the injury. Myers lab at Cincinnati Childrens Hospital was established in part to put those theories to the test.Instead of just looking at the problem, Myer said, we look at the mechanisms causing it.Working with children and yo ung adults, the biomechanical engineers study these athletes as they mature to look for physiological changes. They also do full body motion analysis, and if theyre injured, they determine the biomechanics that led to the injury.Landing in a knock-kneed position is the number one risk factor for injury, Myer said.With this data in hand, the biomechanical engineers have begun to explore steps athletes can take to prevent injuries from occurring. Myers team recommends performing neuromuscular training, which is basically strength- and power-building exercises that translate into support to reduce the risk of injury.Our research has shown we can reduce ACL injuries by more than 50 percent by doing these, Myer said. Ultimately, we dont want the ACL to be loaded that much. We want the forces to be absorbed to the bone structures and the muscular activation.Read More on Teens and Limbs Young Engineer Takes Great Strides with Prosthetic FootArrudas team is looking at another knee injury ri sk factor repetitive loading. That means that ACL injuries are essentially a fatigue failure.Engineers know that in metals, repetitive or cyclic loading at a load lower than the yield or tensile strength can lead to failure. Biomechanical engineers at Michigan and elsewhere are studying fatigue in the ACL to learn more about these failures in pliable human tissues.How a ligament accumulates damage is still unknown, Arruda said. Once we understand that, we can start thinking about the concepts we apply in fracture mechanics of other materials to understand how much damage a ligament can tolerate.How would fatigue occur in a knee? If you play high-intensity sports year-round doing essentially the same move over and over again without sufficient rest and recovery time, you may be at risk as a young part of tearing a ligament, Arruda said. The overall hypothesis Im trying to explore is that the damage can and does accumulate, and healing can occur as well, given time.A third side of the knee equation is also coming into focus, Arruda said. Engineers are engaged in tissue engineering solutions to replace a torn ACL. Thats also something Ive worked on, again with collaborators including an orthopedic surgeon and faculty members in the med school.Their research has spun off a startup company called STEL Technologies to commercialize the technology. We developed a tissue-engineered graft that could be used as an ACL replacement that actually remodels and grows in vivo to restore native biology and function, she said.Armed with better knowledge of what causes ACLs to tear, trainers and physicians will be able to better prevent the injuries. Athletes will be trained to run, jump, and land in ways that spare the ligaments from overstress. Physicians will constantly monitor the knees for accumulating damage and prescribe measures to mitigate the risk.My vision is to one day have an MRI be a routine part of a young athletes annual checkup. Using a patient-specific computat ional model of the athlete and replicating her biomechanics, we can assess her injury risk, Arruda said.The hope is to one day relegate ACL injuries from the sports page to the history books.Tom Gibson, P.E. is a consulting mechanical engineer specializing in machine design and green building based in Milton, Pa. Read More Exclusive Stories from ASME.org Five Job Interview Questions Young Engineers Can Expect Lighter Axle Reinvents Drivetrain. Does motown Care? Engineers Making Waves in AquacultureMy vision is to one day have an MRI be a routine part of a young athletes annual checkup. Prof. Ellen Arruda, University of Michigan