CAPE CORAL, Fla. (WINK)\u2014ACL tears in young female soccer players have surged in recent years, and experts are working to understand why.<\/p>\n
A 15-year study by the Aspen Institute found ACL tears in female athletes jumped 32%, more than double the rate for young men.<\/p>\n
Sierra Straley, a Cape Coral native, played soccer for several club teams in Southwest Florida.<\/p>\n
Six years ago, at a tournament in Miami, her life changed.<\/p>\n
“It was just a long ball down the field, and I turned to kind of beat the defender and just heard the pop, and I went down,” Straley said.<\/p>\n
Doctors later discovered she tore her anterior cruciate ligament, or ACL.<\/p>\n
Another girl on her team also tore her ACL the same day.<\/p>\n
According to Cedars Sinai, female athletes are up to eight times more likely to tear their ACL than their male counterparts.<\/p>\n
The injuries often require surgery and extensive rehab.<\/p>\n
Dr. Jordan Vokes with Pediatric Orthopedics of Southwest Florida describes the ACL as a \u2018rope-like ligament\u2019 in the center of the knee.<\/p>\n
\u201cIts main function is to prevent the shin bone from sliding forward on the thigh bone.<\/p>\n
Vokes said there are several reasons why female athletes are more likely to tear their ACL, including the possibility of hormonal fluctuations.<\/p>\n
An ongoing study funded by the International Soccer Organization FIFA is looking at that possible connection.<\/p>\n
“I think if you look at some of the reasons, we’re seeing that dramatic rise, it’s earlier sport specialization. You know, kids playing the same sport year-round, not taking an adequate amount of rest and letting their bodies recover,” Vokes said.<\/p>\n
For Straley, she hung up her cleats. After graduating from Mariner High School, she’s now working in healthcare.<\/p>\n
“I just couldn’t, I wasn’t mentally in it anymore. My heart was in it, but I just couldn’t convince myself to kind of get over that,” Straley said.<\/p>\n
Vokes is working on an ACL prevention program to help athletes in Southwest Florida reduce their chances of tearing their ACLs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CAPE CORAL, Fla. (WINK)\u2014ACL tears in young female soccer players have surged in recent years, and experts are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233300,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[22556,209,211,210,12812,28,7931,2795,3863,123,104161,2062,1521,20795],"class_list":["post-233299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-aspen-institute","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-fifa","tag-florida","tag-healthcare","tag-injuries","tag-mariner-high-school","tag-miami","tag-sinai","tag-soccer","tag-southwest-florida","tag-surgery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}