These Exercises Can Help Protect Female Soccer Players Avoid ACL Injuries

ACL injuries, or an injury of the anterior cruciate ligament, is an injury that affects female soccer players far more often than male soccer players. In fact, female competitors experience these injuries at 2.8 times more frequently. However, strength training, particularly training that builds the muscles that stabilize the knee area can help prevent such injuries. Ideally, the exercises used should work in different planes of motion, because soccer is a game that requires shifting to different planes of motion. Some exercises that can prove beneficial include, The Eccentric Single-Leg Romanian Dead Lift, The Lateral Lunge, Lateral Bounding, The Set-Up Lunge and The Core Anti-Rotation.

Key Takeaways:

• Big-name female soccer players, like Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan have fallen prey to anterior cruciate ligament injuries.
• It just happens to be an injury that appears 2.8 times more frequently among female soccer players than among male ones.
• The Lateral Lunge and the eccentric single-leg Romanian Dead Lift are two exercises that can mitigate the chance of ACL injury.

“However, just because females are more susceptible to ACL injury does not mean we’re powerless against them.”