Eugene Metro Fútbol Club - Health and Fitness
Playing youth soccer is good for the body and the mind. It gets young boys and girls outside, provides excercise, and exercises the brain in learning the skills and strategy required to play competitive soccer. However, playing soccer is not without physical risk. EMFC coaches do their best to prepare young boys and girls to meet the physical demands of competitive soccer. Unfortunately, injuries still happen during practice and on the field.
Here is an article from the New York Times that discusses ACL injuries to young girls on the soccer field:
The NYT times article is an excerpt of a book written by Michael Sokolove with the title "Warrior Girls: Protecting Our Daughters Against the Injury Epidemic in Women's Sports." The book is an excellent starting point to learn more about ACL injuries among girl athletes.
While the article points out lots of reasons for the higher number of knee injuries, it doesn't necessarily discuss how to prevent them. Please take a look at the following website of the "Santa Monica Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine Research Foundation": www.aclprevent.com.
This research group provides a nice set of lectures about ACL injuries and a 15-20 minute warm-up program to help prevent them. It discusses some of the main reasons why these injuries occur which has to do mainly with the bio-mechanics of how athletes run, jump and pivot. The warm up program was used in a large study in Southern California with about 2000 female soccer players (age 14-18) and proved to reduce ACL injuries by about 80%. All EMFC coaches are using some of these exercises to warm up our teams and do our share to help prevent injuries.
Knee Injuries
The following link will take you to an article about the prevention of knee injuries in soccer. The article details some of the more common soccer knee injuries for particular age groups and talks about excercises and warmup strategies to help prevent these injuries.
Ankle Sprain Prevention
The following link will take you to an article about the prevention of ankle sprains.
Antoher articel on Ankle Sprains
Hamstring Strains
The following link will take you to an article about the prevention of hamstring strains.
Nutrition
Concussion
Concussions can happen to any athlete?male or female?in any sport. Concussions are a type of traumatic brain injury (TBI), caused by a blow or jolt to the head that can range from mild to severe and can disrupt the way the brain normally works. Coaches, athletic directors and trainers play a key role in helping to prevent concussion and in managing it properly if it occurs. Please read and watch the video that the Center for Disease Control and Prevention offers as well as numerous advice and fact sheets.