Monday, April 5, 2010

Busted Up

There has been an epidemic of ACL tears in female athletes. The reason for this debilitating injury occurring has to do with the off season program the coach’s implement. There is not one, if you have ever tried to find girls in the offseason and went into the weight room it would be empty. The coach has them out on the field running and running and running. So I wonder why they have been tearing ACLs left and right. Like I posted earlier you have to train girls the exact same as the guys.
The two main reasons’ for all the ACL tears is the lack of strength in their hamstrings and the Q angle of their hips to knee. We will start with hamstring development. First we can start off with a basic off season, weight lifting program. In your weight lifting program you should really focus on hamstring development. When an athlete is running the tibia pushes on the ACL, you have to have strong hamstrings to be able to pull the tibia back and alleviate the pressure on the ACL. By strengthening up the hamstrings with squats, deadlifts, back extensions, and glute ham raises you will reduce the pressure applied to the ACL. These are the key exercises in building up rock solid hamstrings.

Build your off season program around these lifts and you will see a fast decrease in ACL problem and knee problems in general.

The next problem that the girls have is the Q angle of their hips to knees. As you can see there is an incredible amount of pressure put on the knee. This can not be fixed, but if your off season program is structured correctly it will not be the cause of knee problems. I hope the main thing you get out of this post is that girls should be in the weight room lifting weights and building an indestructible body. Not only will a weight lifting program help stop ACL tears it will help cut out numerous injuries that a female athlete could incur during the season. It is time to change everyone's opinion about girls not lifting weights and focus on building them up in the weight room to be the best and healthiest athletes in the world.

P.S. If your coach tells you to do cross country in the offseason find a new school. Your coach has no clue what they are doing.

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