Show of hands who read the article on girl injuries in sports in the Sunday New York Times magazine? This alone is yikes-worthy: Some experts believe that in sports that both sexes play, girls rupture their A.C.L.s (i.e. blow out their knees) at rates as high as five times that of boys. Girls are also more likely to suffer concussions in sports like basketball. The piece is totally worth checking out, cuz I think this is an issue we need to care about for a number of reasons. Shall I lay those down for you right now?
-If you happen to have a girl child who is into a sport, you may find that kid sports are kinda wicky-wack in some ways nowadays. Many kids play the same sport year-round, often joining multiple leagues and doing regular tournaments. In fact, multi-sport kids feel the pressure to choose one sport if they hope to compete with other players. This is baaaad, because doing one sport all year is hard on anybody, especially developing little bodies with softer bones and forming muscle and so on. Lots of kids are getting injuries resulting from overuse and chronic stress on joints. This totally blows, and is also relevant if you have a boy kid, BTW.
Also, we have structured sports in a funky way. While any preschooler can join, say, a soccer league, by the time kids get to high school, the opportunities to play dwindle. Therefore failure to make the junior varsity or varsity team might mean bye-bye to a sport. That ain’t right. We are seeing some intramural sports and so on, but we have to make sure there’s ample chances to pursue a sport regardless of competitive ability.
And kids are competing hard to get college scholarships and just play for teams. Unless we get coaches and parents on board en mass, it’s unlikely we can keep many kids from limiting play to one season, even though off-season time could be spent on another sport or in other kids of training or in, you know, playing and stuff.
-If you are female, you may want to be aware of some of the physiological reasons girls are getting injured more than boys. More estrogen means more flexible ligaments, and for a number of anatomical reasons having to do with hips and pelvis-shape and so on, women are sometimes ‘knock-kneed’ or just run and jump with mechanics that put you at greater risk of injury. It is also worth noting that one possible help for the girl-A.C.L.-injury problem is a simple regimen of lateral plyo drills, lunges, and movements to strengthen the core. We could all do this and be better for it. And we need more research into female movement mechanics and how we can minimize harm to the body.
-And of course, it is utterly wrong that we have high school girls injured at the same rates as NFL players. And it ain’t right that some girls can hardly walk by age 35, because of multiple surgeries and injuries in their teens.
Now, I get that many of these girls have a particular fighter mentality that makes them play no matter what the cost to their bodies, no matter how badly they are injured. I get this, I relate on some level. We, myself included, tend to glamorize this tenacity and heart. Some of this maybe comes from doing a non-traditionally female activity, where there’s still some pressure to be less athletic, so those who stick with it are tough and determined to succeed no matter what. Only problem is that girls are getting hurt so badly they don’t get to play ever again, and sometimes they don’t recover. And that is a very heavy price to pay, probably too heavy for these kids, who love their sport. Sometimes it takes more heart to sit out and rehab and really recover than it does to race onto the field and end up on a stretcher. And we had better get coaches on board, or we are never ging to be able to help these girls take care of themselves.
P.S. Um, speaking of injuries, my foot is fine. Just badly bruised, nothing real serious, so yes, my freak-out was premature and yes, I’m a little bit sheepish. But in the “take care of yerself” realm, I did ice it all day, swallowed ibuprofen, and elevated it. Then I got my house call from Elizabeth, who confirmed it wasn’t broken, and said the best thing for it would be to run the next day. Ahem. Okaaay, she didn’t say the running part. She was kindly non-committal when I told her I’d be running today. Yes, I am hypocritical and hard-headed. But y’all were nice about it, and the run went okay, and I’m sure it’s all good until the next time I kick with my foot. Oh, and I do plan to seriously practice not doing that, meaning I’ll go for precision and accuracy and repetition rather than “check my power kick” bullshit. Gee, how many times do I hafta learn to put my big dick posturing away and just take it easy, quietly work on form and skill rather than “outta my way fellas—I’ll handle this”? Apparently the number is just this side of infinite.
As a lover of women’s basketball *ahem* the ACL injuries are SO prevelent. Especially in this year’s college season, the stats on women’s vs men’s were out of control. I don’t remember exactly the numbers, but it seemed close to that 5x # the article reported. No good very bad. Glad ur foot its okay!
Mallory
May 14th, 2008
as I sit with my knees on ice (I’ve had both knees with ACL surgeries- played college basketball, competitive tennis)- I agree!
I’ve had to take my son to Children’s PT Center for injured athletes (rehab from a surgery, but not sports related) there were high school kids in there alot with the attitude, “fix it so I can play”. The PT’s were trying to convince one girl- that while the coach would want to to come back, she wasn’t ready! Heartbreaking that our kids might not be able to enjoy athletic activities later in life.
There’s also a great book “Revolution in the Bleachers” about parents and our roles in our kids ’success” on and off the field. I highly recommend it. Keeps our attitude in check.
Miss you Kelly!
surf mom
May 15th, 2008
Double ACL surgery here, too. From recreational sports in my 20’s. Go figure.
I wanted to point out that gymnastics can be especially damaging to joints. I was a gymnast in my pre-teens and some of my teen years and I now have wrist and shoulder trouble which my Phys. Ther. bets is from the gymnastics. It’s not just knees!
Alex
May 15th, 2008
As a personal trainer and a high school and college soccer player who tore my ACL, I know my future will bring a knee replacement. At least Zimmer and other ortho companies are getting smarter and making replacements female-friendly.
Girl-Woman
May 30th, 2008
ibuprofen is definitely the best OTC painkiller for me. It helps me a lot to deal with my muscular pain.”~.
Isla Watson
May 19th, 2010