Avoiding ACL Injuries

http://health.yahoo.net/news/s/hsn/female-soccer-players-may-face-health-problems-study

As a long time youth track and field coach and participant, I cringe when I watch soccer teams warm up before games. As the girls get older, they are more susceptible to ACL injuries. I watched games this weekend at the Winter Blast and the pre-game warm ups were simply unacceptable. 50 degree weather, yet none of the coaches spent more than 10 minutes warming up the girls and yet they expect the girls to run full speed and cut on cold muscles.

Parents, put your girls in a track and field program for one summer. They will learn how to warm up properly and how to run with proper technique. Then follow the workout posted on another forum about avoiding ACL injuries and hopefully your daughter will have an injury free soccer career.

The key to avoiding injury is strong hamstrings. Unfortunately, almost all the girls I saw this weekend need a lot of work on their legs. Sting has a fitness company they recommend and I know of several good trainers. It doesn't matter who you use, just spend some time on the strength component of your daughters soccer game.

If you live near a track, pm me and I will give you one workout that will quickly help to strengthen the hamstrings.

Good luck this spring.

I split this into its own post.

Big Bucks! That's why they pay you the Big Bucks!

I received several pm's about increasing speed and whether a daughter who doesn't exhibit fast twitch speed can even get faster. I think most soccer parents are interested in short speed or quickness more so than long speed--which you need more in track and field. Rarely, will girls run a full out straight line sprint for 100 yards in a soccer game.

90% of the girls I have seen on the soccer field in that last year, can all get significantly faster by proper training. Focus on the hamstrings and hip flexor's and you will see results very quickly. Think about how many times your daughter starts, stops and changes direction in a game. The girls who look faster than other girls, just have stronger hamstrings and hip flexors which give them more explosion.

Agility training is not enough. You have to find a trainer who can target the two most important muscles involved in speed and explosion through a combination of plyometrics, light weights and sprinting. If all the 04 parents do this, the level of soccer among all of the teams will skyrocket.

I have noticed a lot more girls wearing ankle boots and knee braces due to soccer injuries lately. It is a shame because proper training and just a little bit of time on the track can prevent a lot of these type of injuries.

Just to expand this topic beyond ACL. We do a small number of ankle exercises almost every day, it takes all of 5 minutes or so--toe lifts, resistant band, etc. because we know kids who have sprained their ankles playing soccer multiple times. I'm told once their ankles get weak and turn over that it's even more likely to happen again.

If you noticed lately, the large shoe companies have all moved towards the feet you wear concept. Nike, Reebok, New Balance, Skechers, are marketing shoes that have minimal support similar to running barefoot.

I read lots of papers that suggest that kids are suffering more ankle injuries because they spend little time strengthening the foot and ankle by playing barefooted like in the old days. When I was young kids used to play barefoot 80 to 90 % of the time. Kids can strengthen the ankle a number of ways, walking around barefoot is the easiest but calf raises at the end of a workout should be standard for all coaches.

Parents, if your coaches warm up consists of kicking the ball back and forth and then running a few laps please pull them aside and stress how important injury prevention is. A good warm up should involve, butt kicks, skips, carioca, side straddle, short bursts building up to top speed.

Can you post for all of us some exercises we should be having our dd's do to help build & strength these main target areas?