Common Sports Injuries in Female Athletes
Sports & injuries go hand in hand. Any athlete, at any level, in any sport meets face to face with injuries until the career lasts.
Playing sports offers numerous benefits to women of all ages; young girls who play sports display higher academic performance. Women who exercise regularly can improve cognitive functions of planning and decision-making. As women age, it is shown to improve their mobility and joint movement, preventing any sort of stiffness and potential falls.
Yet, the brutal reality is that female athletes are more prone to injuries than male players. They’re more at risk for injuries like ankle sprains, stress fractures, shoulder problems and even concussions. Much of it has to do with female body design.
The body structure (which includes the bones, ligaments and muscles) of a female athlete tends to make it more susceptible to rupture as compared to their male counterparts. Women are more likely to suffer from injuries arising out of over use, whereas male athletes tend to face higher energy contact injuries.
What’s even more astonishing is that women’s menstrual cycles also play a role—and although people rarely talk about it, it’s a major factor that women of all ages should be aware of.
Women also jump and land differently than men. If an athlete plays a sport which involves repetitive jumping and running, the knees might sustain a damage over time. With a basic awareness and proper preventive measures, there’s a lot women athletes can do to enhance their longevity and steer away from injuries as much as possible.
Some of the common injuries women in athletics end up facing have been touched in this article.
1) ACL Tear – One of the most common injuries that female sportspersons experience is the tearing of the anterior ligament. This rupture in the knee area happens largely because of a common prototype – females tend to land with the knee extended straight rather than flexed.
As per doctors and sports physios, female soccer and basketball athletes are two to seven times more likely than males to experience an ACL tear.
2) Sprained Ankle – The second type of injury results out of unusual movements, sudden jerks, excess pressure on the ankle area or twisting, which happens when the ligaments surrounding the ankle stretch or tear.
3) Tendonitis – As per popular belief, female athletes have a higher chance of an inflammation of a tendon, resulting from repeated use of a joint such as the shoulder, elbow or knee.
On an average, females are three times more likely to have shoulder injuries and twice as likely to have knee issues than male athletes because of the basic anatomy design of the bodies.
4) Fractures – Another common injury type is the stress fracture, caused by continuous force on a bone from running or jumping. These physical activities lead to tiny and painful bone cracks that become deeper over time and as age progresses.
Though injuries are unavoidable, they can be cured and repaired through guided medical interventions. Some of the best practices that are shared by medical experts actually go a long way to minimize the pain and intensity of the injury’s impact.
- Athletes can help prevent overuse injuries by limiting their training time and varying activities that creates the optimum balance in the muscles. (For example, incorporating things like Pilates, Yoga and stretching to calm the joints and muscles.)
- The I.C.E technique – which stands for ‘rest, ice, compression and elevation’ is widely followed during therapies to restore the athlete’s strength and mobility.
- Warm up properly with dynamic movements instead of sudden or heavy stretching.
- For extreme cases, supportive braces, medication, casts, physical healing are all different methods which assist in keeping the injury impact to the least minimum level possible.
My Perspective:
As it is regarded, ‘prevention is better than cure’, for any athlete especially a female one, it is imperative that complete caution and care is taken while training, exercising or playing so that the body can rest and recuperate faster and allow the player to go out there and enjoy the game without any worry.
The wise thing to do is to always listen to one’s body and see the doctor if something doesn’t feel right. Never try to just ‘play through’ the pain, for it may turn out to be a bigger issue later.
