INJURIES IN WOMEN'S SPORTS

There's an article today in the Sunday N.Y. Times on injuries in young women that is kind of disturbing. Take some time to read Hurt Girls.
You might have to register to see the whole article (it's free).

Pretty startling stuff. among the revelations quoting the NCAA injury surveillance system.. - women have 5 times the ACL injuries that men do, and the rate for concussions is much higher. And it's not just Soccer. Women Basketball players suffer 2 1/2 times the ACL's the men do.
Even Men's Football doesn't suffer as High an ACL rate as women's soccer, and there many of the injuries can be attributed to direct blows to the knee.

Don't read the description of what happens to an ACL tendon when it ruptures before breakfast. It's not for the squeamish.
The author sees the Injuries UP suffered in the last couple of years not as bad luck, but as statistics playing out.

There also a discussion about the differences in the way boys and girls run, and that some sports researchers claim some of it is correctable.
There is at least some hope.

Last fall there was a posting on The Oregonian's high school girls' basketball forum that dealt with the same subject. The author or person who was quoted claimed that, if you knew what to watch for, you could watch the athletes in action and tell if they were likely candidates for knee injuries, similar to the information in this article.

Sounds like living the sport with such intensity, to the exclusion of other sports, compounds the issue.

Keelin skipping the current U20 camp to rest may be a good thing.

UPWomenSoccerRookie wrote:Last fall there was a posting on The Oregonian's high school girls' basketball forum that dealt with the same subject. The author or person who was quoted claimed that, if you knew what to watch for, you could watch the athletes in action and tell if they were likely candidates for knee injuries, similar to the information in this article.

Sounds like living the sport with such intensity, to the exclusion of other sports, compounds the issue.

I've heard the "runs like a girl" claim before, but I don't know how much to believe it. Megan never struck me as someone who ran upright with no flex in her legs, and I don't think you can say she didn't have muscle mass. She crumpled to the ground on a relatively innocuous play, with no one around her. There's got to be more to it. I guess hormones play a role, but there has to be ways to mitigate those effects. I'm not sure what--Taping?

I thought the record of the kids who kept up the PEP regimen was a good sign, but there aren't any good studies being done yet. One thing for sure, with more women playing sports, whoever comes up with answers will be a hero.

I read somewhere recently that the skeletal foundation is somewhat different in men than in women. Women have wider hips, (in scale with their overall size), than men. Of course this is because women need the extra room to carry a fetus in her womb.

They had a picture of a female and male skeletal parts from the waist to the feet. It is obvious looking at the comparison that women's legs, (and therefore knees), come down in a V-like angle as compared to the male, whose legs come down from the hips at a straighter, thus less angular, position.

The article concluded that women have a greater incidence of knee injuries because the pressure is greater on their knees because of the fact their legs don't come down from the hips as straight as a male's.

It made perfect sense to me. There is no "cure" for this, obviously, so women athletes just have to find a way through doctor's, trainer's, strenghth conditioner's, etc., advice to try and make the leg muscles stronger and joints stretched and more pliable. Other than that, healthy women could wear rubber knee braces as a precaution. I wear them for arthritis and they really work. However, in reality, this might make the athlete slower, lessen quickness and make them less flexible when making quick turns.

I'm no expert. Just food for thought. I would welcome responses from medical industry readers, as well as players who have "lived" the life and know a little something about training and preventing knee injuries.

ACL injuries continue to take its toll. USSoccer.com reported today that Leslie Osborne tore her ACL and will not make the Olympic roster. Awful...awful injury!

GO PILOTS!!!

Sadly , it appears that Santa Clara's Jordan Agneli also suffered her second injury of that type.

The ACL is the Achilles heel of women's soccer, to mix a medical metaphor. It's a wild card that can throw an athlete's career off course in one bad foot plant after years of perfect health and superior fitness. A friend of mine has a daughter who was a hot classic soccer player in high school -- tall, agressive, fast -- and prone to ACL injuries. She missed a season and never again caught up with her teammates. After her 2nd surgery her parents had to tell her it really wan't going to be possible for her to go on with the sport if she wanted working knees. She's shifted to other activities to compete and stay fit. I'm sure others out there have similar stories to tell.

For parents who hope their kids will win a college soccer scholarship, it's a fair warning to note that far more kids earn academic scholarships that athletic ones. My friend noted that, in financial terms, he'd have been better off to invest her classic soccer fees in a college savings account — he'd have come out way ahead. But a kid's dreams must be honored as as girl tries to sort out what her place is in the world of sports and in life.

I am all for letting kids chase a dream at a young age to see what comes of it. It's the kid's pleasure for a sport (or other activity) that matters most. Face it, most classic league players won't be getting a free ride to a big-time soccer school. The payoff comes when they become the next generation of lifelong players, fans and coaches ... or orthopedic surgeons.