© Grady Reese/Corbis
With the increasing popularity of soccer around the world comes a corresponding uptick in soccer-related injuries. And considering that fútbol fever has grown particularly rapidly among women in recent years—the number of female soccer players grew by 19% between 2000 and 2006, to 26 million players—female futbolistas have been suffering their share of injuries. Yet a team of Swedish researchers, including surgeons, primary care physicians and physical therapists, may have a developed an exercise program targeted to preventing one of soccer players’ most frequent injuries: a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). In a study of some 1,500 female soccer players between the ages of 13 to 19, those who participated in a special injury-prevention program were 77% less likely than their peers to suffer knee injuries.
Study participants were followed through the 2007 soccer season, with roughly half (777 girls playing on 48 different teams) assigned to the prevention program, while the other half (729 girls on 49 different teams) participated in their regular training regimes. Girls in the prevention program were educated about the risk of knee injury, given specific warm-up routines, and asked to perform regular exercises to improve muscle strength, balance, and overall mobility, while reducing strain on the knee. The full routine of exercises—such as backward or zig-zag jogging during warm-up or single leg jumps and walking lunges to promote balance and strength, respectively—took about 20 to 25 minutes to complete, and teams were instructed to do the full run-through twice a week during preseason, and once a week during the regular season.
Over the course of the season, girls in the intervention group not only suffered fewer injuries, but those that they did endure were less severe than those suffered by players in the control group. Whereas the three girls in the prevention program who suffered severe knee injuries regained full range of motion and activity within six months, of the 13 girls in the control group who hurt their knees, only four were full recuperated six months later. What’s more, when the researchers analyzed non-contact injuries, the protective value of the intervention program was more evident—girls who did the program were 90% less likely to suffer a non-contact-related injury than those in the control group.
The numbers, the authors say, speak for themselves, as does the high level of participation among players. Of the 48 teams included in the intervention group, only three reported compliance levels lower than 75%, meaning that the vast majority of players kept up with the prescribed warm ups and exercises. What’s more, even after the season had ended, 16 teams said that they continued using components of the preventive program, while 7 teams said they continued to practice the regime in its entirety—staying power made more significant by the fact that none of the players were aware of the study results. As the authors write, “The high compliance rate in this study suggests that the program is easy to implement and incorporate into regular soccer practice.”