USC’s Juju Watkins Tears ACL. Why women are more likely to do this injury

This was a bad turn in the hope of USC to win the NCAA ladies basketball championship. Only five minutes after the victory of the Trojan horses of 96-59 at the state of Mississippi in the second round of March Madness, their star-shooting guard Juju Watkins went down with a tear from her right front cruciate ligament that required surgical reconstruction and months of re-rehabilitation before returning to the Courty. It is an injury that is unfortunately too familiar with female basketball players. In reality, A study published in 1999 Discovered that female college basketball players were 3.5 times more likely than their male counterparts to undergo ACL tears. There are theories Why this is the case with the emphasis on the word ‘theories’. That’s because, surprise, surprise, ACL injuries from female athletes were investigated compared to those in male athletes.

The ACL injury of Watkins is a blow to the ambitions of the Trojan championship

During her first two collegial seasons, Watkins had scored 1,709 points, the second most ever behind the only Kelsey Mitchell by Ohio, which reached 1.762 from 2014 to 2016. The averages of Watkins of Watkins of 24.6 points, 7.0 Rebounds and 3.5 Assists Honor and the National Player Press. It also helped the Trojans to earn the fourth number one seed in this year’s NCAA tournament after 30-3. But the chances of the Trojan horses to win the entire ball was a big knee to the intestines when Watkins’ right knee nodded during a quick break drive to the basket.

The ACL plays a crucial role in stabilizing the knee. A ligament is a band of fiberish tissue that runs from one bone to the other in a joint. Your knee joint usually has four such ligaments that connect your thigh bone, the thigh, with your larger bone bone, the tibia. These are the ACL, posterior cruciate ligament, medial collateral ligament and lateral collateral ligament. The ACL and PCL have the word “cross” in them because these ligaments cross to form an X. You could also say that both are quite crucial to prevent your knee joint from going a rocking.

The ACL Teaching and surgery will keep Watkins out for months

You may get away without surgery after a full ACL tear if the muscles around your knee are strong enough to compensate and most cut that you do is limited to scissors. But if you regularly play basketball, football or other sports that cut, jump and run, chances are that you will have to have your not connected ACL replaced and reconstructed through surgery. Before the operation, the surgeon may want a piece of you, which means that a piece of your patella or hamstring tendons serves as a replacement ACL. As an alternative, the surgeon can use an ACL of a cadaver, but such transplants may not be that sustainable and your body can eventually reject them, as I have detailed Forbes Rather.

The actual operation is only chapter one in a long journey. Then you have to rebuild your muscles, strength, balance and a number of other things that you can lose quickly. As you may know, it is always easier to break things up again and your knee is no exception. It can take up to six months of physiotherapy before a return to court is possible.

Different anatomy can cause women a higher risk of ACL tears

You could fill different All-Star games with basketball players for star ladies who have experienced ACL tears. The schedules would be Sue Bird, Tamika Catchings, Candace Parker, Cameron Brink, Paige Bueckers, Azzi Fudd and now Watkins. Although the basketball players from Star Men such as Derrick Rose and Kyrie Irving have also gone to such injuries, the total percentage does not seem that high. Available studies and figures propagate such differences, which suggests that women are somewhere between two and eight times more chance of an ACL injury than men.

However, it is not entirely clear what that difference causes. One possibility is anatomical differences. Females tend to have wider basin, which can change the mechanics of how different parts of the lower limbs move during rapid changes in the direction. You just have to observe a bunch of men who struggle to make a split to understand the differences in hip structures. The result of such differences in theory could be that women experience more stress on the supporting tissue, such as the ligaments when entering into certain movements such as running, jumping and turning. But these anatomical differences and the resulting impact have not been investigated enough to be all more than a theory.

So what can you do if your pelvis is indeed wider? Although Shakira may have sung that your hips do not lie, they do not easily change their structure. In addition, different hip structures have different benefits in different settings. Perhaps in the future, researchers and trainers can be more hip of what these differences can be and how they can better adjust the reinforcement and training methods. This may be that changing the way you run, jump and turns and focuses on developing different muscles, the protectors of your joints.

Different muscle mass could play a role in ACL tears

This brings another possible reason to why women are susceptible to ACL tears: differences in the masses and power of muscles that support the knee. Your knee joints may not work separately from the rest of your body. It would be a bit weird if they did and a reason to contact your doctor. When you run, jump, cut and turn, the Quadricep muscles must wear a considerable amount of power at the front of your thigh and the hamstring muscles in the back of your thigh. But when such muscles are underdeveloped and are not trained to contract at the right time, they can be like those members of your project group who do not do much, most of the cargo and stress on just a few, in this case, the ligaments of your knee.

That is why it is not surprising that a large part of the rehabilitation after ACL operation builds and strengthen your quadriceps and hamstrings. This can not only help you return to your former Kickus Assus -itself, it can also prevent tears from your ACL transplant or your other ACL.

On average, women tend to have less muscle mass on their knees than men. Women are also often ‘quad dominant’ with stronger quadriceps muscles than hamstring muscles. Less muscle mass and an imbalance between the front and backs of the thighs can bring the knee aments with a greater risk.

Now, unlike bone structure, muscles are things that you have more control over. Exercises such as squats, lunges and step-ups can strengthen your quads. However, it is easy to neglect your hamstrings because you can’t see them so easily in mirrors and selfies. Moreover, many movements such as running, jumping and cycling can be quad -heavy if you are not aware of your hamstrings. Therefore, be aware of working in your training, more hamstring-active exercises such as hamstring curls, lunges, glute bridges and deadlifts.

Hormones can be a factor at ACL tears

The differences in the average muscle mass that is observed in women versus men can be applied considerably to differences in testosterone levels. Testosterone can help build muscle density. And women usually have relatively lower testosterone levels.

At the same time, women tend to have considerably higher estrogen levels than men, although estrogen levels fluctuate during the menstrual cycle. Evidence suggests That estrogen can contribute to looser tendons and ligaments that in turn can unload your joints. That can enable you to be more flexible and do things like the aforementioned splits. But more lax joints can move more easily in different directions and therefore leave your ligaments more susceptible to damage.

This does not mean that you have to start taking testosterone and try to lower your estrogen levels only to protect your knee lates. If you rumble with your hormone levels, you can mess with a lot of other things. Moreover, there are other evidence-based ways to protect ACL, such as the aforementioned hamstring exercises.

Different spring and turning stages can contribute to ACL tears

This is a situation in which style is just as important as substance. If it is your style to bend your knees and hips less when landing, you will land more legitimate and flat -footed. This will ultimately put more power through your knees and therefore more tension on your knee aments. Observation has shown that more women can use this spring style, so that they can lead a greater risk of ACL tears.

Of course, jumping styles are not necessarily congenital, unchanging properties. This is not “why effort without a Y chromosome” situation. It is possible that women do not receive training or socialization in a earlier age to jump and move in the same way as men. But even if you are older and notice that you land too flat and hard after you jump, don’t despair. Physiotherapists and other training professionals can help your muscles, nervous system and the rest of your body learn new jumping styles.

This brings the possibility that female athletes move in other ways, making them more susceptible to ACL tears. This can include subtle ways to place your feet when running or anticipating where someone else is going. Females may not have access to the same training and coaching that many men do. Although an athlete finally gains access to good training and coaching when reaching the elite level, some of those non-so-called habits that are taught in earlier years remain cold.

Again, it is still not clear how many ACL injuries could have been prevented in female athletes over the years and how. The problem is not enough research has been done in these areas to support the growing number of girls and women who exercise. When a steratleet such as Watkins perishes with a serious injury, there is at least a possible positive twist. It could draw more attention to the injury and find new ways to prevent this.