Biotech Values

[AlohaDan]

the wider pelvis to facilitate childbirth results in a more pronounced angle of the femur

As the below article discusses the pelvic system is one of several possible reasons including sex hormones {http://www.spts.org/news/6.html} More interesting are some of the solutions in training for overcoming female ACL injury. I know top soccer players are getting some of this now. No BP pill yet!


http://www.senecapt.com/_articles/ACL_Prevention.htm

ACL Injury Prevention Training for Young Athletes
Steve Daisey MPT, CSCS

ACL injury is devastating to a young athlete, virtually always requiring surgery, and at least 4 to 6 months of rehabilitation before returning to a competitive level. Nearly 80% of the time, injury occurs without contact from another player (1). In other words, at a high speed, the muscular system failed to protect the knee joint adequately, excessive stress was transferred to the ACL, and it simply snapped.

Females are at an even greater risk than males, injuring their ACLs at six times the rate of males (2). There are numerous theories as to why this occurs including hormone estrogen level (3), anatomical differences related to pelvic structure (4) and the smaller size of the female ACL coupled with a narrower notch where it attaches on the femur (5).

Recently, research has shifted focus to the movement patterns and training techniques of the male and female athletes. From that research, some startling discoveries have been made.

In a landmark study in 1996, female athletes were found to have a marked imbalance of the strength and power between their hamstrings and quadriceps as compared to males (6). Because of this imbalance, forces within the knee when decelerating from a jump or sprint were much higher in those athletes with less active hamstrings (6). Studies have shown that the hamstrings play a pivotal role in stabilizing the knee and protecting the ACL when the knee is bending while decelerating (6-8).

What is most exciting is that these studies, along with others, have found that training to correct this imbalance appeats to result in a lower incidence of ACL injury (9,10)

At Seneca, through our Beyond Fitness program, we have taken this research a few practical steps further. We recognize that in normal, efficient sports movement mechanics, the hip joint should take the majority of the stress of deceleration. In other words, athletes who frequently injure their knees, generally over-use their knees and under-use their hips. etc

For those intrested in this topic and training to avoid injury a google search on ACL female pelvic will popup quite a few papers.