Tips on Preventing ACL Injuries

When it comes to my kids sports, I have developed a strategy.  Though I love to watch them play and I'm over the moon when they score a goal, when it comes to finding a higher division team, thinking about the tactics of the game or worrying about playing time, I leave that to my husband.  I have one job.  When it comes to my children’s sports I'm the mama bear. 

 I don’t worry about the details.  Instead I believe it is my job to make sure my children are always safe.  With this goal in mind I spend a lot of time researching sports injuries and ways in which they can be avoided. 

I recently had the opportunity to attend the Anne Arundel Medical Center’s Preventing Sports Injuries in Young Athletes Seminar where Dr. Peter Ove offered a brief presentation on preventing ACL injuries. 

He explained some of the theories behind the prevalence of ACL injuries in girls as opposed to boys and gave us an idea of  what it takes to prepare our young players to avoid these injuries.

 But in an 8 minute presentation, Dr. Ove was limited in the information he could pass on.  Luckily, Stephen Vaught, who runs a ACL Prehab Program at API in Severna Park agreed to give me an hour of his time and explain the theories behind the epidemic of knee injuries in our female athletes and what our coaches, whether through the high school teams or even on the younger Green Hornets teams, can do to help our children avoid these injuries.

 Until recently, orthopedic medicine focused on the injury itself.  If you had an ankle injury, they focused on the ankle.  If you had a knee injury they focused on the knee.  In the past couple of years the medical community has come to focus on the body as a whole, with the understanding that each joint effects the next joint. 

Because of this focus, doctors and biomechanics experts like Vaught have discovered that many injuries can be prevented.

 “First we start with screening,” he said.

 Athletes can be screened by an orthopedic specialist or in a “prehab” program like the one at API.  Vaught said that the screening would begin by looking at an athletes feet.  If the foot is not stable then the ACL is already at risk.  But the foot is just the beginning. The screening analyzes exactly how all of the joints work together.

 The screening may lead to a need for a different type of shoe or even an orthotic that stabilizes the foot.  After this the athlete needs to focus on adding strength and flexibility work to their program.  This should be done in a way that is sports specific.

 “The problem we see is that these girls want to get faster and they think that to do this they need to run, run, run, run," said Vaught, then asking: "But where is the strength work?  Where is the flexibility work?" 

"If girls would just add these elements to their workouts, I really believe we would see a decrease in these injuries,”he said.

 This leads me to my mama bear speech.  Over the years I have watched hundreds of practices.  I have watched coaches walk up to a field, tell the girls to run a couple of laps and then jump right into a practice.  In doing this, I believe we are teaching our children bad habits.  I say this from experience and many of the parents in Severna Park will understand this point.

 As a marathoner and triathlete, I spend a good portion of my day with aches and pains that I know can be prevented by more stretching. I understand that adding a stretching routine into my workout will make me feel better but I don’t have the time.  Unfortunately, this means I get injured more often than I should and still, I don’t stretch. 

 Because of the predominance of ACL injuries in our female athletes, a precompetition warmup and stretching program has been developed that can prevent these injuries.  Studies have shown that if this program is implemented before the girls take to the field for their practices and games the number of ACL injuries can be greatly reduced. 

 Organizations such as the Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine Center, Chesapeake Orthopaedic and API offer individual programs for athletes and have created seminars to teach coaches how to implement these programs. 

 Unfortunately, many coaches and parents think of the ACL issue as a problem that occurs most often in the teens and therefore don’t even think about implementing a prevention program before that.  There is a stigma to strength training that needs to be overcome.  I asked Vaught about this.

 “If it is progressed in the right manner, there is no age limit,”  he said. “Instead of thinking of strength training as big dumbbells and barbells, people need to understand that we can start training children as young as nine if we use their body weight or bands instead of big heavy weights.”

 Vaught  went on to explain that by teaching children good habits between the ages of eight and twelve, they will not only be strengthening their body but they will be building good habits that will last them throughout their sports career.

 As a mom, I was afraid I would walk away from the seminar afraid to let my children take to the field again.  Luckily that didn’t happen.  Instead, I was pleased to realize how much thought is now going into my children’s health on the field. 

It was also a relief to see that coaches from Green Hornets, Severna Park High School and Severn School were all in attendance.