May 08, 2008
Uneven Playing Field - about the hidden epidemic of ACL injuries in women who play sports.
One of the big causes (not mentioned til later in the article): all of the sports medicine literature concentrates on male professional athletes.
I knew there was a reason (excuse?) I barely moved between the ages of 18 and today!
Yeah, I remember there being a lot written about this in the early 90s, particularly about female basketball players -- while ACL injuries are pretty common among both men and women in soccer, it's highly skewed in basketball (although my perception is that it's increasing in the NBA). I've heard the wider-hips theory (but that time in the context of the angle at which the bone sits in the joint), the muscle-mass theory, the over-rotation theory, the surface (astroturf) theory, the single-sport theory, and now the biomechanics theory... I don't think they really have a clue. There's so little emphasis put on actually figuring out how women's sports equipment should differ, rather than just making stupid stereotypical superficial changes for marketing purposes -- I'm still waiting for shoes that actually fit -- my feet are too wide/flat for most women's (read: narrower, pastel-colored) shoes, and most stores don't sell men's shoes in my size -- somehow all boys apparently jump from 5 to 6.5? </rant> -- so I don't expect them to figure this out anytime soon.
Anyway, ttj, my joints aren't great, but I don't walk like a retired NFLer or anything (and I never played as much as these girls). I find it hard to believe that the hard-core focus on a sport from the time a kid is 6 is good for anyone, but that's just my unfounded conjecture.
ms c--
as far as shoes, if you're willing to deal with Nike (and want a pretty cushion-y shoe), most of the women on my high school cross country team were quite enamoured with the Men's version of the Nike Air Pegasus
and yes, I think Americans are going absurdly overboard with the childrens' sports, too. I really don't see the point in being in anything more organized than a local Y league until you're in high school. But that's just me.
Because Valatan, unless you play in competitive leagues and do all the summer camps, you'll never make the high school team. Most of the girls on the soccer team in my high school were club players (require lots of time and money) and some were even ODP (junior Olympics).
I feel like a senior citizen right now. My back is very achy (I can pinpoint a soccer injury about 15 years ago that causes my back to sideline me from everyday stuff about once or twice a year). Despite that, I can't give up soccer and sports. I try to take it easier (be less competitive) and keep my core strong and stretch, but I don't want to give up being athletic. I think without the sports foundation in my youth, I would have other health problems (there are a lot of overweight people in my family). Oh yeah, and I've had ACL reconstruction.
I too agree that more effort/money should be spent on womens' sports research. Unfortunately I don't see that happening anytime soon.
(Hey Ms. Claw!)
It will happen anytime soon, I think -- when the Title IX generation of women start taking over half of the sports medicine literature, which I bet is already well in progress. It'll probably take another decade, but that would still put physics to shame.
Also: funding for 'obesity epidemic' research is/will be ramping up, which will benefit the other part of it -- sports medicine for non-professional athletes.
I don't know if I agree with the above agrument--you lose a lot of your internal balance and muscle control when you hit puberty, and all of that has to be relearned. In my high school, the kids that didn't do all of the intercity traveling pee wee league stuff started out behind, and may have been stuck in city leagues or the freshman league or something their first year, but would quickly catch up. Maybe this is just because the high school I went to had a pretty mediocre sports record
And this doesn't even factor in the risk to muscles and joints that making prepubescent kids engage in supercompetitve sports with regular training and weightlifting and crap.
I wonder how a certain AEer who's had two ACL tears feels about this discussion.
I had great aspirations for this article, but I don't think that I learned anything new. I've been playing sports my entire life, and I've been on the field, witness, to about 6 ACL tears. All of my past teammates have been aware about the injury risks but keep playing because the rewards have outweighed the injuries. Playing sports is more fun that a lot of things, and I tend to be friends more frequently with teammates than other random women. You can point out how much more of a physical struggle it is for women athletes than male athletes, but it is still a choice. (And a well-informed one.) If I had to do it all over again, I'd still have played ultimate that season I broke my hip.
I agree that proper training and weight lifting are essential for injury prevention. I tore my ACL during an evening game after a day full of outdoor activities. It wasn't an impact, my legs were just fatigued. And before post-surgery therapy, I rarely weight-trained. When I started coaching soccer this year, I emphasized the importance of warming-up and stretching and made sure my girls had a good warm-up. I am now an assistant coach and the head coach (male) rarely has the girls stretch or warm-up. That's a bad habit.
Slightly OT, but Texas woman wins team 1A state championship as the only qualifying competitor from her high school. HT: Feministe
That's funny in a completely awesome way. The next Jackie Joyner-Kersee, maybe? And is it just me, or does she look like she's 30 in that photo?
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This is not new. I read an article in college where they were noticing girls in sports having a lot more injuries than boys in the hips, knees and ankles. If I recall, that article brought up the angle that these injuries might be getting their foundations in late elementary/and jr high, when girls hit puberty and their main growth spurts. All that wear and abuse on joints and bone ends that are trying to fully form and grow, without the benefit of testosterone to help make them stronger as well. That article mentioned that maybe the best thing to do would be to not have girls play sports at that time of their lives, but admitted that such a suggestion would just be met with howls of disbilief.
I don't know how your joints are Ms C., but what these girls and other young folk don't realize is that those pains will never ever go away completely. They will have pain the rest of their lives, I've seen it in more than a few people, men and women. When you're in your 30's and some days you walk like a senior citizen cuz your knees are all fucked up, most people seem to regret it.
posted by TowtruckJohnny at 07:48PM CST on May 08