Difference Between Men & Women's ACL Injuries

MsProudSooner

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If you have Sirius XM Satellite Radio, Channel 82, Doctor Radio is going to discuss the Difference Between Men & Women's ACL injuries sometime in the next hour or so.
 
The speaker was Dr. Karen Sutton of Yale School of Medicine. She has a special interest in female ACL injuries and has done a lot of research. http://orthodoc.aaos.org/sutton/

The first thing she mentioned was Plyometric Exercises? If you google this, you will find lots of websites and utube videos of these exercises.

She mentioned footwear. She said you don't want a lot of traction between the sole of the shoes and the field or court.

She talked about the PEP Program from Santa Monica Orthopedics. This is a link to a PDF file about this workout: http://smsmf.org/files/PEPExercises.pdf

These are some of the examples she gave:

Focus on stretching and strengthening posterior muscles of the leg. Train body to be ready to change directions. Run 10 yards and take 3 steps to slow down.

Box jump test(jump off of box and then jump like going up for rebound) – are hips and knees flexing? Are they knock kneed? Are they symetrical?
Most ACLs happen on landing from jump or planting. Body has to respond quickly.

Risk of ACL before women reach puberty is about the same as men. Females after puberty seem to have stronger quadriceps. Muscles in back of thigh are the ‘brakes’.

To me, this was the most important point she made: Start these training methods when girls are 8 – 10 so it will become more habitual. My niece coached a elementary age girls soccer team in the Dallas area for 2 or 3 years. She first heard about these new training methods 2 or 3 years ago. NCAA basketball won't see girls who have religiously done this training since prior to puberty for a few years.

Skinny, lanky girls are more at risk.

Hormonal studies say perhaps around ovulation girls are more likely to have ACL injuries due to ‘relaxin’ hormone level is high at this time but the studies aren’t really conclusive. Some birth control pills that girls take are taken every day instead of 21 on and 7 off. Girls who take these pills don't ovulate and don't have a period while on this pill. I don't know how this would affect the hormone level.

Better to jump and land from a crouch position – puts less stress on the ACL.

Core strengthening helps, as well.

Female athletes have a higher risk of injuring the other leg.

After injury, the girls need to spend more time in conditioning and stretching than others do.
 
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Thanks MPS for the info! Very interesting and hopefully, in the near future these types of injuries will become fewer. This type of research can only help!
 
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