Female Sports Injuries: The Creature from Jekyll Island

Majority of you reading this probably are wondering what is the Creature from Jekyll Island about. Well, yesterday while preparing for my speed camp, I was reading an article entitled The Creature from Jekyll Island, and I thought that since I had posted yesterday about the benefits of sports participation for females, why not talk about some of the injuries that most females sustain from playing sports. Jekyll Island is a real island located off of New York. It was a private island, it was a resort club, it was where the families of the very, very, very wealthy went to escape the cold winter months of New York. There you will find documents where a very small group of billionaires from New York met to establish what we now call the Federal Reserve Bank. But enough about the real Jekyll Island, I thought it would be cool to name this entry The Creature from Jekyll Island. Jekyll and Hyde is a portrayal of a split personality, split in the sense that within the same person there is both an apparently good and an evil personality each being quite distinct from each other; in mainstream culture the very phrase "Jekyll and Hyde" has come to mean a person who is vastly different in moral character from one situation to the next. So I thought since yesterday I posted about the "Hyde" or benefits of participation of females in sports, it would be rightfully deserving to post about the "Jekyll" or injuries that most females are susceptible to while participating in sports.

Female high school sports has increased 900% which equates to female participation doubling every 10 years. As stated in yesterday's blog post the benefits for female participation are numerous. Some of those benefits are:

female athletes are less likely to:

• Be in abusive relationships
• Teen pregnancy
• Chemical use
• Obesity
• Cardiovascular risks
• Develop breast cancer

however, females who participate in sport are more likely to:

• Finish high school
• Enroll in college
• Have an increase in self confidence
• Have better bone density
• More positive body image
• Learn and implement goal setting skills
• and develop team work capabilities

As discussed in a previous blog post, female athletes are more likely to injure their knees than male athletes. They are 2 to 8 times more likely to sustain an ACL injury. They are 2.5 times more likely to go down with a MCL/ LCL injury. And they are twice as likely to sustain a menisci injury. The mechanisms that causes these types of knee injuries are usually non-contact in nature. They usually come from females trying to change direction or cut on a surface, decelerate, or land from a jump.

Training programs should be designed to include prehabilitation components within it.
Within the program exercises should include:
• Stretching
• Plyometric type of exercises (type of exercise training designed to produce fast, powerful movements, and improve the functions of the nervous system, generally for the purpose of improving performance in a specific sport),
• Proprioceptive balancing exercises (the term proprioception refers to a sense of joint position. Proprioceptive training is highly common in rehabilitation of injured athletes, but it can just as easily be used to prevent injury),
• Strengthening
• Flexibility
• Incorporate some hamstring activation type of exercises
• Landing drills with the emphasis on landing on the ball of the toes
• and Deceleration training

Concussions and cervical neck strains are injuries that females sustain while playing sports with soccer having the most incidents reported. Majority of the concussions appear to be from head to head collusion with other female soccer players. At the same rate, more females are suffering worst from post concussion syndrome. Post concussion syndrome or PCS, is a set of symptoms that a person may experience for weeks.
Symptoms include:
• Dizziness
• Lethargy
• Decrease concentration
• Poor sleep
• Decrease appetite
• and Memory deficits

Some girls who play sports or exercise intensely are at risk for a problem called female athlete triad (FAT). Female athlete triad is a combination of three conditions: disordered eating, amenorrhea, and osteoporosis. Amenorrrhea is the absence of menstrual period for more than 3 months. A female athlete can have one, two, or all three parts of the triad. In 2007 the American College of Sports Medicine redefined FAT as recognizing the relationships among energy availability, menstrual function and bone mineral density, which may manifest into eating disorders, amenorrhea, and osteoporosis in at-risk female athletes. Triad disorders are thought to be most common among female athletes in sports or activities which emphasize a lean physique or low body weight, such as gymnastics, swimming, or track and field.

Our last group of injuries are shoulder and foot related. Generally females have more joint laxity than males which predispose them to injuries of the shoulder joint. At the same rate, females are 9 times more likely to develop foot disorders from playing sports. The main culprit for foot injuries and disorders are improper fitting of the shoes.

Some of these disorders are:
• Metatarsalgia-general term used to refer to any painful foot condition affecting the metatarsal region of the foot. This is a common problem that can affect the joints and bones of the metatarsals.
• Bunions
Hammertoe-twisting of the toes that are caused by high heels, narrow shoes and wearing improper shoes
• Neuromas-refers to any swelling of a nerve

In conclusion the rate of female participation is outpacing males. Injuries sustained by female athletes are unique in that they are intrinsic and extrinsic in nature. The ultimate goal is to empower female athletes, promote musculoskeletal health, and facilitate a lifelong participation way after their high school and collegiate careers are over.

Reference:
www.naot.org
Personal Trainer in Charlotte, NC