Historically, males have trained to play sports and females have played their sports. Today’s parents/guardians of teen female athletes do not know about the training that is available today to help all female athletes. Even if today’s adults played sports in their teens – this lower body (and upper body for overhead sports) stabilization/strengthening training was not identified by researchers as being essential. The explosion of female sports participation in the past 20 years was fueled by Title IX passage almost 40 years ago.
When a female athlete cannot play due to injury, she feels isolated as the social pull for females is much more so than for males. The female athlete is 3 – 9 times more likely to injure her joint than same-age males. A new book by leading researchers [Understanding and Preventing ACL Injuries] provides some statistics/reasons for females to train and minimize their risk for injury:
1. “100,000 to 250,000 injuries reported in U.S. as female sports injuries, 2. 40,000+ ACL surgeries for female ACL repair, 3. 1,000,000 patient visits in total for healthcare professionals; i.e., pre-surgery, surgery, post-surgery, 4. 1: 4 females, 25% who have ACL surgery will injure the other leg, and 5. A neuromuscular control loss will cause the non-injured side of your body to drop to equalize”
This is not the picture we want our female athletes to imagine. The authors of this book write:
“Physical therapy is changing to try and address potential issues in advance. Move toward technique progression, stability progression, single leg lateral progression, symmetry side to side, single leg rotator progression and lateral [sideways] trunk progressions are being done with athletes in this study. The goal is to get athletes back to their sport, while also evaluating their movements.”
Every female athlete can be proactive and prepare their body to play sports. All female athletes can benefit from a cost effective at-home training program as not every female athlete can participate in one-on-one or group training.* But, minimizing the risk for injury needs to be valued as 70% of injured female athletes will have an osteoarthritis (OA) challenge within 12 years of an injury, whether or not a female required surgery [1999 Swedish study). Compare this research to males who are injured and they may or may not end up with OA in 20 years.
Balance, neuromuscular control, and proprioception; i.e., the ability for an athlete to control her joint. This needs to become mandatory to decrease the too high injury rate for female athletes. Non-contact ACL (anterior cruciate ligament in knee) injuries are an epidemic in female sports. The “position of no return” has been described in research as a key movement that must be avoided. This is where the knee is out over the toes producing maximum stress inside the knee. The GOOD news is that the muscle memory required for female athletes to avoid this position can be learned through safe and age-appropriate training.
In March 2011, a leading orthopaedic surgeon/researcher describes female ACL injuries as “becoming a public health challenge.” Dr. Wojtys words describes the urgency for all female athletes to value training to play sports.
There is no downside to safe and age-appropriate training to play sports. An injured athlete who has trained her body will return to play faster than an untrained athlete. Now is the time for female athletes to value training to play sports.
*There are no exercise programs that can guarantee injuries will not occur during training or when playing sports.