There are yet no optimal criteria to be applied in rehabilitative sports medicine for the estimation of the restoration of the athletes' physical conditions to enable them to return to their professional activities. The primary objective of the present study was to develop specific methods for the assessment of the physical performance of the athletes safe enough for the use at any stage of testing and sufficiently informative to give idea of the athlete's condition. To this effect, we compared the effectiveness of various testing procedures specific for different sports. We divided the athletes suffering injuries to the knee joint into two groups. The control group consisted of athletes that were tested by classical diagnostic methods employed in sports medicine. The study group was comprised of the athletes examined by the methods specific for a given sport. The effectiveness of diagnostic methods was estimated based on the calculation of the frequency of repeated injuries during two months after the athletes were permitted to resume training. Results. The study has demonstrated that specific methods designed for testing alpine skiers, hockey players, and football players are more specific and produce better results if used for the assessment of the athletes' physical conditions in combination with the conventional diagnostic tests. Such an approach makes it possible to decrease the number of repeated injuries.