Imagine the scene: an athlete laid out on the floor in the fetal position with both hands clasped over her knee. Screams fill the air, and tears fall from her eyes as the pain is so intense that it almost defies explanation.
Sports have become an integral part of the developmental experience of many of today’s youth. Since the implementation of Title IX, more young girls and women have begun to play sports and see those sports as a possible career path. Tennis, basketball and soccer all have professional sports leagues for women, and many more sports offer women the ability to pursue their dreams through the highest levels of competition like swimming, gymnastics, track and field, volleyball, etc.
However, this increased participation in athletics has come with an increase in sports-related injuries. One injury in particular has been troublesome for women — the torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL).
While many male athletes have torn their ACLs, it may come as a surprise that women are anywhere from four to 10 times more likely to suffer from the debilitating injury than their male counterparts. Six members of the 2012 gold-medal-winning U.S. soccer team have torn an ACL at least once, including Shannon Boxx, Megan Rapinoe, Heather Mitts and Captain Christie Rampone. WNBA Stars and Olympians Candace Parker, Tamika Catchings and Sheryl Swoopes have also torn their ACLs. This propensity toward torn ACLs in women has become a problem that has exploded over the past years as sports medicine and training have caught up to the number of participants.
“There is tons of research on this,” said Dr. Alice McLaine, director of athletic training education at Winthrop University. “The thing that we are finding is that there are still a lot of answers that we don’t have.”
Genetic predisposition
