hs girl's soccer and knee injuries

[Anonymous]

DD has sustained repeated injuries to one knee: partial ACL tear and now meniscus tear. Soccer is her life, but is it time to give it up? She was hoping to play college soccer. She is not ready to move on. Should I be working to move her in that direction? Cautionary or encouraging stories welcome. Suggestions for other sports/activities welcome too!

[Anonymous]

You might get a lot of responses about this but many of them will be worried parents who at the first sign of an injury pull their kids from anything.

Most people don't train properly, they wait until something hurts or is damaged until they start working on things. If you train properly with weight training, running, learning how to jump and land -and no it isn't doing cross fit, you will be ahead of the game.

Read this entire article, there is a lot in it. Al;so talks about kids from B-Cc & Whitman and their injuries. There is also a book about Whitman's girls soccer and the high rate of acl tears and the reasons why and what they did and other schools to prevent them.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/magazine/11Girls-t.html

[Anonymous]

Would a good PT program help build strength so her knees aren't as much at risk?

I have a younger kid, hoping to be able to play high school sports, who has already sustained 2 concussions because of sports. DC knows there's a point at which sports become too risky. We had a serious discussion after the first concussion. We have a good set of providers and right now DC is considered safe to play, but DC also knows another concussion could be the end. I think DC knowing it's not just overprotective-mom, but doctors (who are supportive of DC's athletic pursuits) who are saying this helps.

I have it somewhat easy since concussions have been in the news and concussion awareness is a big deal. If you know any older athletes it might be helpful to have your daughter talk to them about the affects on their bodies as they've aged.

[Anonymous]

She did rehab and was cleared by her ortho to play. She was back at it for 3 weeks before this most recent injury. Ortho says because of the different nature of the new injury it may not even be related to the previous one. I don't want to stifle her but I also don't want to keep going through this. The pt is expensive not to mention the TIME for getting her to and from ortho and pt appointments. It's exhausting but if it will get her back to playing it will be worth it. If it will get her to her next injury, not so worth it!

[Anonymous]

As the parent of a kid who had an ACL tear playing soccer, my advice for a player serious about playing in college is to avoid HS soccer, and to not just go through the ortho's rehab, but also follow-up with an ACL prevention stint of physical therapy.

HS soccer has such a broad range of skill levels and typically boils down to long-ball and rough physical play that the injury risk is greater than at the club level. Also, few, if any, college coaches are coming to a hs game so it won't impact your kid playing in college.

I'm admittedly making a big assumption here about the cause of your child's injury but stats show a huge percentage of reinjury and injury to the non-injured knee occurs within the month or two of restarting playing and the suspicion is that is due to the imbalance between the knees. The typical rehab program is just to get an injured person up and moving normally again. For a top athlete, you need more and a good ACL prevention/rehab program will test your kid for imbalances, and train them to get rid of those imbalances.

[Anonymous]

Her first injury was at a hs game but this most recent one was with her club team, so... IDK. Maybe I should look more closely at the rehab. We chose the location for convenience but maybe a more serious sports focused rehab facility would be good- although this place does focus on sports.

[Anonymous]

a physical therapist is a decent place to start but a person who has been certified in prevention is better, some PTs are but don't expect preventive stuff to be covered by insurance.

http://sportsmetrics.org/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As the parent of a kid who had an ACL tear playing soccer, my advice for a player serious about playing in college is to avoid HS soccer, and to not just go through the ortho's rehab, but also follow-up with an ACL prevention stint of physical therapy.

HS soccer has such a broad range of skill levels and typically boils down to long-ball and rough physical play that the injury risk is greater than at the club level. Also, few, if any, college coaches are coming to a hs game so it won't impact your kid playing in college.

I'm admittedly making a big assumption here about the cause of your child's injury but stats show a huge percentage of reinjury and injury to the non-injured knee occurs within the month or two of restarting playing and the suspicion is that is due to the imbalance between the knees. The typical rehab program is just to get an injured person up and moving normally again. For a top athlete, you need more and a good ACL prevention/rehab program will test your kid for imbalances, and train them to get rid of those imbalances.

47-year old former college soccer player and multiple marathon runner throughout my 30s-40s--the imbalance comment nailed it.

From HS I was equally training quads and hams. To his day I perform pretty much the same weight/lifting routine to stabilize the knees which I credit leaving me with zero injury and zero knee pain at close to 50. Of course--some things are inevitable---like my sister's foot getting caught in taller grass and the knee going the other way --career-ending.

If your daughter is tall--that is also an issue. I was 5'4" in my playing years---grew an inch after--but the taller players often are more prone to those knee injuries.

I did tear an ankle Freshman year in HS---and that is the one I continually roll as an adult---but thankfully there is never pain. I do a lot of balance exercises to build it up.