[BD] Fwd: Protect your ACL

[Rich Dean Shelmerdine]

If you fancy a break from discussions of water / strips / reporters, here's
some stuff about knees.
Apologies if you've seen this already.
Dean.


---------- Forwarded message ----------

Date: Tue, 13 May 2008 13:26:36 -0400
From: "Craig Buchanan" <cbuchana at nmu.edu>
Subject: Re: [ED] Protect your ACL
To:'eurodisc' <EuroDisc at ira.uka.de>,
Message-ID: <008801c8b51e$8313ac10$893b0430$@edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Melle,



Great site..as a former girls high school basketball and softball coach I
have seen many ACL tears over the years.  I hate it.  There has been a
recent trend to attribute the higher prevalence of ACL tears amongst girls
and women athletes to the menstrual cycle.  If you Google ACL's and
menstrual cycle you will find a lot of information.  It suggest there are
more ACL tears during the ovulation phase of the cycle.  Not sure exactly
when that is! J  But I'm sure you ladies know that.



Over the past 10 years in my own informal study I would say about 75% of the
young women I asked who tore ACL's have told me they were some where in
their menstrual cycle.  I really became convinced in a non scientific way
that it appeared to me that the menstrual cycles were having an effect.  We
started making anyone in a pre menstrual cycle (that's what we called it)
had to wear knee braces in practice and be very careful.  It did limit some
of our ACL tears but not all.



As Melle as so wisely pointed out in her e-mail, one of the other reasons
for ACL tears in women is the positioning of their knees in relation to
their hips.  Another is not landing in correct position.



I instituted quickly a plyometrics program for all our girls athletic
programs.  These types programs work on strengthening the knees and the
surrounding areas, builds up other leg and core muscles, and teaches you how
to land properly.  I would suggest plyometrics  for any young female athlete
who competes on a high level in any sport.



Here is a link that you can check out to get you started if you would like
more information on this subject.

http://www.orthojournalhms.org/volume2/html/articles22.htm



Good job Melle.



Shoot the old guy with one knee and no arm,



Buck Buchanan

USA Guts

GPA #001



From: eurodisc-bounces at ira.uni-karlsruhe.de
[mailto:eurodisc-bounces at ira.uni-karlsruhe.de] On Behalf Of Melle Clark
Sent: Tuesday, May 13, 2008 12:17 PM
To: ulti NYC-ultimate; ulti Asheville; eurodisc; Dames; Lotus Eaters
Subject: [ED] Protect your ACL



There's been a series of articles in the New York Times lately about the
prevalence of ACL tears amongst girls and women athletes.  Everyone knows
this is a pretty common injury for Ultimate players to sustain.  Below is
link to an exercise program recently developed -- 20 minutes of exercises --
aimed at strengthening supporting muscles in an effort to prevent the
injury.

http://aclprevent.com/pepprogram.htm

As noted in one of the articles
[http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/12/protecting-knees-of-young-athletes
/], ACL reconstructive surgery "involves drilling into a growth plate, an
area of still-developing tissue at the end of the leg bone," so it is
particularly important to take measures to avoid this injury in players
under 25.

Play well,
Melle