COLUMBUS, Ohio — A recent study coming out of Nationwide Children’s Hospital shows that female athletes are at a higher risk of sustaining an ACL injury. 

What You Need To Know

  • Anatomical differences between male and female athletes play a minor difference in  susceptibility to ACL injuries

  • Workouts and warmups are key in preventing injuries

  • ACL injuries occur when tear or sprain the ligament that connects the thighbone to the shin bone

As high school teams prepare for fall sports, it’s important that both male and female athletes do the right workouts for their bodies to prevent injuries.

A recent study coming out of Nationwide Children’s Hospital shows that female athletes are at a higher risk of sustaining and returning from an ACL injury compared to their male counterparts. 

ACL injuries usually happen when an athlete tears or sprains the ligament that connects the thigh bone (femur) to the shin bone in the knee. There are a few reasons this career changing injury can have a bigger impact on women and girl athletes.  

Doctors see the most ACL injuries in sports like soccer and basketball, which calls for a lot of jumping, hard stops and fast pivots. The anatomical differences in male and female athletes contribute to how these movements impact the body. 

Although physical difference in the genders does not play a major role, the width of the pelvis coupled with the length of the femur affects how female athletes’ bodies react to sudden movements. Dr. Drew Duerson, with Nationwide Children’s Sports medicine team, said programs like the FIFA 11, Soccer Injury Prevention Program is something that should be a part of every practice. 

“The hard part is when you buy in, the athlete needs to buy into the process the family and especially the coaches because a lot of times this becomes a, you know, a preseason preventative program, but a lot of times this needs to continue into the season,” said Duerson. “This actually can take the place of a lot of the warm-ups that the athletes are doing during the season.”

It takes many athletes an entire season to recover from an ACL injury, if they come back at all. When an athlete is injured, it not only can have a physical impact, but a psychological one as well. 

“You know, this is probably the one diagnosis that I have to share with my patients that usually ends up in tears,” said Duerson. “This is something that we have to not just treat physically, you know. Obviously we need to reconstruct the ACL and rehab that patient, but we have to think about the psychological impact, too. Trying to stay as optimistic as we can is just as important.”

According to OHSAA, coaching kicks off August 1st, and the season begins just a few weeks later.