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September 17, 2009

ACL Injuries in Girls

New York Times has published an article about why girls have more ACL injuries. Theories about about hormonal laxity or the Q angle of female hips. Now, after analyzing dozen of videos of boys and girls tearing their ACLs, upper body sway seems to be the culprit.

In PT school we have learned all sorts of special tests to assess the ACL ligament. We have discussed protocols for rehabbing injured knees following injury and surgery. As for prevention, it has been suggested that strengthening the lateral gluteal and thigh muscles helps prevent a myriad of injuries in girls and women.

The problem: when women jump (or run or do anything that makes them come down hard on their legs) their knees tend to go knock-kneed when they land. So, strengthening abductor muscles makes sense. Now, according to the new studies, strengthening the core may be key.

“Our research suggests that the issue in injured female athletes,” Hewett says, “is a lack of high-level ability to control deceleration and acceleration at the center of their mass in three-dimensional space.”

The problem develops in puberty: As girls get taller and put on weight, their center of mass moves higher, but their relative muscle strength does not increase accordingly the way it does in boys. This leads to weaker core stability.

Happily, if Hewett’s theory holds, they can train away some of that risk. Specific exercise programs that target strength and balance or proprioceptive deficiencies could “reduce female athletes’ risks until they’re almost comparable” to the risks for male athletes, Hewett says.

tags: massage massagetherapy wellness massage therapy bodywork health

Posted by linda at September 17, 2009 5:55 PM