UTILIZING STRIVE TO REDUCE CHANCES OF INJURY IN WOMENS SPORTS
Since the inception of Title IX in 1972, participation in women’s sports skyrocketed at all levels. To match this growth, orthopedic injuries among female athletes has also increased. Specifically where the Anterior Cruciate Ligament is concerned. In the United States alone, as many as 80,000 female high school athletes experience an ACL tear each year. Research says that women are 2-8 times more predisposed to ACL tears than their male counterparts.
Seven players in the National Women’s Soccer League have experienced an ACL tear in the last four months alone. STRIVE’s mission is to help curb this troubling rate of injury in female athletes. And while doing so improve return-to-play processes.
Dynamic sports like soccer require a lot of twisting motions and contact. Which can produce an excessive load on joints and ligaments. When this is the case, proper muscle function is important. ACL injuries can happen when making cuts, landing from a jump, or or even when taking a hit from an opposing player. Fatigue can cause muscle groups to function less efficiently. This creates imbalances, and the athlete’s ligaments can become exposed to additional stress. When an athlete’s ability to absorb force or stabilize joints is compromised, these forces are passed along to the ligaments. If those are too weak, then you could experience an injury.
WHY ARE WOMEN MORE PRONE TO ACL INJURIES THAN MEN?
Finding the “why” to this question creates a compelling question. It is well researched that women tend to have wider hips than men. Creating displacement and knee valgus – the knees bending inward while taking on pressure and adding additional strain to the knee joints. The reasons for women being more at risk for ACL injury have seen extensive research.
The increased risk for injury appears to be associated with many factors, including a narrower intercondylar femoral notch and smaller ACL, an increase in natural ligament laxity, slower reflex time, an imbalance secondary to greater quadriceps strength and hamstring weakness, fluctuation in estrogen levels, and the tendency for females to land flat-footed. – Wentworth-Douglass Hospital
The female pelvis is wider, which changes the mechanics of how the thigh bone, tibia, and femur function. This puts more stress on the soft tissues that support your joints. This higher stress can lead to either a chronic (overuse) or acute (sudden) injury. According to research, an ACL tear is one acute injury that female athletes are two to eight times more likely to experience than males. The ACL, a ligament in the knee that connects the femur to the tibia, is extraordinarily strong, yet has little elasticity. It absorbs a huge amount of stress until it can’t hold on anymore, and then it tears, [Tears] are especially common in sports that require pivoting and jumping, including soccer, basketball, lacrosse, and skiing. – Yale Medicine
There’s no doubt that these injuries aren’t completely unavoidable. But STRIVE provides trainers, coaches and physical therapists a revolutionary tool to help slow the trend. STRIVE allows us to take an inside look at how a person’s muscles are functioning and handling practice or game load with an objective view of their muscle function. Using the STRIVE Performance System, we can provide women athletes with an untapped resource. Giving them quantitative, actionable insights into how their body is functioning to inform training and recovery.
Step one is understanding an individual’s muscle symmetry and ratio during certain movements. STRIVE’s movement eval feature gives us a quick snapshot of second by second motions and muscle activations. Which allows us to get a better understanding of what the leg muscles are doing.
TRAINING
Up until recently, we’ve only been relying on the human eye to see how an athlete is moving and how their muscles are functioning. While electromyography has been around for a long time, the test is generally done at rest in the lab setting with the athlete performing small muscle contractions to run the test. This provides results when you are fresh and at rest. With STRIVE, you get an internal view of how the muscles are working in stages of fatigue in a real world setting. When muscles become fatigued, athletes can fall back on old movement habits and overcompensate to cope with the load. When an athlete is tired, they become more exposed to injury. This creates a unique window to see how the muscle groups are performing during these times. With STRIVE we can actually see which muscles are carrying the load. And which groups need improvement throughout an exercise, game, or practice.
Creating a balance between the major muscle groups can be key in preventing injuries. This is exactly what STRIVE can do for athletes and their trainers. STRIVE tracks the hamstrings, glutes, and quads, and aims to see a relatively normal 3-way ratio split. But since no athlete is the same there can be varying degrees of what is “normal” for each individual. Another factor to consider is the neuromuscular connection – the brain telling the muscles to fire. An athlete does not have to have discomfort or pain to show that something is wrong. Live biofeedback provided by STRIVE allows for fine tuning of the neuromuscular relationship. Which provides another method of allowing athletes to optimize muscle activation. And in return help prevent injuries.
One commonality among female athletes is to be more quad-dominant. That is to say that the quads handle a major part of a load in comparison to the hamstrings and glutes. This inefficient muscle function can lead to knee issues as well as other leg related injuries – sprains, stress fractures, etc . Strengthening the weaker muscles and the knee joint is critical to help prevent these injuries. And with STRIVE we can provide a tool to help users accomplish this.
STRIVE allows us to see how muscles are functioning in different stages of fatigue. So we can have an athlete wear the STRIVE Performance System during a workout, game, or practice (‘we talkin bout practice?!‘). And with the data identify imbalances in muscle symmetry and make small adjustments. This can be through flexibility, strength, or conditioning work that will help to improve their overall efficiency even as fatigue sets in. And as we correct the imbalances, the major muscle groups are more well-equipped to handle the load. Thus taking pressure off of the ligaments.
Access to this kind of biofeedback is the true power of STRIVE, and something that we haven’t had access to up until now. STRIVE visualizes these imbalances in muscle function and provides a tool to help correct them. Helping to reduce orthopedic injuries among female athletes and keep them on the pitch.
Seven players in the National Women's Soccer League have experienced an ACL tear in the last four months alone. STRIVE's mission is to help curb this troubling rate of injury in female athletes. And while doing so improve return-to-play processes.
RECOVERY AND REHABILITATION
One considerable hurdle with ACL injuries is inefficient rehabilitation. Discomfort or lingering injuries are potential consequences of failing to properly reestablish the neuromuscular connection after an injury. In a recent case study on our blog, we detailed the effects of an improperly rehabbed ACL injury. Our hope is to give trainers, coaches, and physical therapists a tool that will help athletes recover efficiently, and improve return-to-play processes.
Where return-to-play (RTP) is concerned, STRIVE is an extraordinary asset. It’s no secret that as an athlete recovers from an injury they will experience some dysfunction and muscle imbalance. STRIVE allows us to take a look at how an athlete is performing post-injury. Identify the imbalances or dysfunction. And make small adjustments to improve efficiency in the injured limb. This will not only help them feel better while performing, but lower the chance of re-injury.
Many athletes will come back from an injury and immediately return to practice. Externally, they appear to be performing as they were pre-injury. But their internal load (muscle output) has increased significantly. Reducing their efficiency and overworking their muscles. See our return to play study here. When the internal load outweighs the external, the muscles get overworked and can lead to reinjury or potentially additional injuries to the side that is overcompensating.
Let’s say for example one of our female athletes has recently recovered from a torn ACL in their left knee. Their physical therapist asks them to perform a run while wearing the STRIVE Performance System. By looking from an external view, they appear to be back to normal. But from an internal perspective, the story could be much different. Are the muscle groups performing symmetrically? Most likely, the answer is no. Their right leg is compensating for the weakness in the left.
The human body is exceptionally adaptable, and will find ways to perform even when it’s not at optimal efficiency. But Strive allows us to visualize the imbalances in muscle function. Find the muscle group or groups that aren’t performing optimally. And make small adjustments to improve. Now we run the test again. Has it improved? Are the adjustments working? No? Make the proper adjustments, and run the test again. Are the hamstrings firing? Are the quads firing? If not: make adjustments, test again. Are we seeing improvement? Rinse and repeat.
Using this method, we can provide concrete evidence on what is working and what isn’t. This not only can speed up the RTP process, but decrease the chances of aggravating the injury by returning to play too early. Once we improve symmetry and function, we can improve the way athletes play, improve how they react when fatigued. Thus lowering the chances of injury or aggravation.
One of the most important roles as a coach or trainer is ensuring your athletes are progressing while increasing function – especially when returning from an injury. While we’ve traditionally relied on the naked eye, force plate testing, and assurance from an athlete that they feel “ready”, technology like STRIVE can see what human eyes can’t and give coaches the data they need to back-up return-to-play decisions.
From analyzing muscle activation in the training room to evaluating symmetry during running and speed progressions – like change of direction and acceleration/deceleration work – STRIVE can give coaches and trainers the insights and data they need to understand when an athlete is ready to progress to the field, court, rink, pitch, etc. And with this, we can help to reduce orthopedic injuries among female athletes.
WHY STRIVE?
STRIVE tech is a revolutionary product that can help athletes in training and recovery. By giving athletes and trainers an inside view of how their body and muscles are reacting to strain, we can help to optimize muscle performance and prevent these injuries from occurring. Over 215 professional and collegiate athletes and teams in the NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, MLS, EPL and NCAA use STRIVE to achieve and maintain peak performance with the industry’s most accurate and actionable muscle data.
STRIVE can help athletes to understand their physiological strain, fatigue, and efficiency – which will help them be faster and stronger. It can also help to prevent injury, keep athletes healthy, and help them rehabilitate efficiently and get back on the field.
Learn more about STRIVE and connect with one of our Sport Science or Support Team here: support@strive.tech
