… ACL tears are 4 to 8 times more frequent in females than males …
I’m still trying to get my head around that statistic. It’s simply not what I’ve seen in gymnastics knee injury over my lifetime.
Update – Commenters quickly pointed out that female gymnasts are far more fit than the average female athlete. These statistics are for all sports. Our stats are likely quite different.
Perfect 10 Physical Therapy and Personal Training has launched a program oddly named:
Cincinnati DNA Plyometeric and agility program
… increase jumping height, improve jumping and landing efficiency, improve landing mechanics for a perfect stick and in the process decrease the risk for injuries including ACL injuries. …
It’s a a 6 week program, 3x/wk plyometrics and agility, 2x/wk weights geared to physically prepare the female gymnast.
Click through to see a 7min video on the program.
And contact Perfect 10 if you want to know more. We might get some ideas of drills to include in our own injury prevention conditioning programs.
8 comments ↓
ah Coach Rick where was this video 6 months ago when I tore my ACL and am waiting to have surgery:(
JG, hang in there…
Gymnastics is actually pretty unique in that it’s a sport where the average availability/quality of training for girls is, if anything, BETTER than that for boys. Training also starts early in life and is, of needs, very conditioning intensive. I would doubt whether this male to female ratio holds for gymnastics. In sports like soccer, girls’ increased rate of these injuries has been blamed on late start, poor overall conditioning such as lacking core strength and improper body mechanics. In gymnastics, flexibility is emphasized, and even more importantly, so many very basic skills, such as kips, tap swings, handspring vaults, are all about core strength.
Rick, the reason you don’t see it as much in gymnasts is because they generally don’t have developed hips. In physical therapy they refer to the angle that demonstrated from the hip to the kneecap as the Q- Angle. The greater the angle, the more stress the joint experiences.
http://sportsmedicine.about.com/od/women/a/Q_angle.htm
Thanks anon. Thanks xmaestro.
That makes sense. I’d say the rate of that injury is about equal MAG and WAG in my experience.
I watched the promo video and I didn’t see a thing in there that would suggest that it’s an ACL prevention program.
In fact, I saw kids doing squat jumps and their knees were caving in (knee valgus), etc. etc.
Performing a bunch of jumping exercises and telling the kids to land with their knees over their 2nd toe is great in theory. When I single leg squat, I know that my knee is not supposed to cave in and I cue myself and try to consciously keep it stable, but it doesn’t always work for me.
There is a movement patterning issue here. That should be the focus. Physical Therapist Gray Cook is on the right track with the information that he offers in my opinion. We could look individually at each factor that may be causing that knee to “cave” and predisposing the athlete to an ACL rupture. But, even if we correct all of those individual factors (i.e. lack of foot stability, poor ankle mobility, poor hip strength/stability, etc.), that is not going to correct the ability of each of those parts to work together in unison to land with the knee in a stable position and reduce the stress that is applied to the ligaments.
I wondered about the video myself, Chris.
It looked like general leg conditioning. … Of course, I’m no expert.
I googled: “Physical Therapist Gray Cook”
http://www.strengthcoach.com/public/794.cfm
http://jdboelter.blogspot.com/2007/12/gray-cook-on-physical-therapy-manual.html
“… book “Athletic Body In Balance”), and now DD has seen seen fit to offer two of his “Functional Movement Screening” programs on DVD …”
Is there one resource you’d recommend, Chris, in particular?
Bleh, valgus issues are the most common factor in ACL tearing.
The major problem I have with gymnastics is that teaching kids to land with legs together for stuck landings is improper mechanics and harmful.
Landings should be stuck with feet shoulder width apart so as not to encourage “collapsing knees” valgus condition.
Combine that with a lot of beam work with improper mechanics and a bunch of gymnasts develop knock knees from too much valgus stress. Even with the lack of a larger Q-angle in female gymnasts compared to other sports.
Proper S&C focuses on strengthening correct biomechanical movement through generally weighted exercise (squats/DLs) with proper technique and attention paid to keeping the knees tracking properly, and posterior chain emphasis to eliminate patellofemoral issues.
Structural issues such as flat feet may need to be addressed as well.
I wrote up some generalized everything about valgus here:
http://www.eatmoveimprove.com/2009/11/shoes-sitting-and-lower-body-dysfunctions/
Note that the high occurrence of ACL injuries in other sports such as soccer and basketball are due to similar issues — mostly due to poor landings or cutting and lack of proper strength and conditioning.
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