\u201cThere\u2019s a heap of research across the board in sports and sports medicine that has been historically based on men and [when] transferred to women, it\u2019s different,\u201d Barron said.<\/p>\n
Helene Barron: “It’s really hard when all your mates are active and you can’t be.”<\/p>\n
\u201cLooking at the way we move and making sure that sports specific training and injury prevention is really important in that case too.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the community level however, where most of these injuries occur according to HPSNZ sport and exercise physician Dan Exeter, training environments can possibly play a role just as much as hormonal and anatomical differences.<\/p>\n
Exeter, who is also the medical director for Athletics New Zealand, stressed that in the high-performance environments, equitable pathways for male and female athletes are firmly established. At the community level, where there is a boom in female player participation (and where the majority of ACL injuries occur), however, it can be a different story. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is changing, clearly, but we are seeing young female athletes come through training environments that are not perfectly matched to what we see in our male cohort,\u201d Exeter said.<\/p>\n
He added that there\u2019s a challenge navigating the \u201cfine line\u201d between creating as many pathways and opportunities for young female athletes as possible whilst having the athletic development and injury prevention to go along with it.<\/p>\n
Dan Exeter: “I think a lot of codes are doing a good job.”<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are stuck a little bit between a really admirable goal of trying to get more high-level sporting competitions for women and trying to do that as quickly as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Instilling knowledge at the community level is a big step in the right direction, according to Barron.<\/p>\n
She said \u201ccoaching the coaches\u201d to have injury prevention measures in place, which can be as simple as an appropriate warm-up, is already making effects on sports that are homing in on female athlete preparation.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs physios, we might see people once a week, once every couple of weeks [or] once a month but the coaches are seeing them every training.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s generally that they need to have a range of exercises [balance, strength, agility and plyometric], as well as the really sports-specific drills, and making sure that technique is correct.\u201d<\/p>\n
For ACLs specifically, Barron said the difference in prevention training differs from the age and stage of the specific athlete, making it important to tailor \u201cto those athletes in front of you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt might be that there\u2019s more of a focus around biomechanics or landing control in that early stage of puberty when there\u2019s a little bit of dis-co-ordination [and] un-co-ordination that happens as people change the way they move,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think a lot of codes are doing a good job,\u201d Exeter added.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got pretty good data around what might work from an injury prevention point of view based on the work that came out of the Fifa Eleven Plus, and that\u2019s been adapted certainly by Netball and the Netball Smart programme.\u201d<\/p>\n