BodyCentral Blog
ACL Injuries in Female Soccer Player
Over the last couple of decades, the attendance of females participating in
sports has had a remarkable increase, which is awesome. Although with the
increase of females participating in sports, the occurrence of injuries has
increased as well. Females tend to have a higher occurrence of knee injuries,
specifically ACL injuries, compared to male athletes. According to the Journal of
Athletic Training, girls’ soccer has the highest incident of ACL injuries compared to
all other sports and when comparing females to males in the same sport, females
had a higher rate at 8.9 compared to males at 2.6.
Why do girls tend to have more knee injuries compared to boys? According
to an article by J Orthop, girls are more likely to have an injury to their ACL
because of differences in hormones, anatomy, femoral notch width and shape,
neuromuscular contractions in stiffening their knee, and core stability.
So what does this mean? Since females are more prone to ACL injuries
compared to their male counterpart, it is much more important to train proper
mechanics for landing, jumping, sprinting and cutting as well as strengthening
their core, hips, knees, and ankles to provide the extra stability needed to protect
their knee during dynamic movements that are so important in sports such as
soccer.
References:
1. Joseph, A. M., Collins, C. L., Henke, N. M., Yard, E. E., Fields, S. K., & Comstock,
R. D. (2013). A Multisport Epidemiologic Comparison of Anterior Cruciate Ligament
Injuries in High School Athletics. Journal of Athletic Training, 48(6),