Rehabilitation exercises are used in sports to address functional muscular deficits or imbalances, resulting from contact or non-contact injury, where surgery has been ruled out on a temporary basis – pending the outcome of the rehabilitation protocol – or on a long-term basis, when surgery is not the appropriate option. Many of these exercises using eccentric loading (the muscle elongates during contraction) – which mimics how the body functions mechanically.

Pre-habilitation (Prehab) exercises are used to prevent useless injury, resulting from participation in sports or recreational activities, and the physical, environmental, and terrain constraints imposed by each sport, such as a grass or synthetic turf in college and pro football.