Then freshman, now senior Alex Dressman is preparing to punt the soccer ball. Next thing she knows, wham, the shooter slide tackles her right leg. As she falls, Dressman hears a pop and the back of her knee begins to throb. That faint noise was Dressman’s anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tearing.

Tearing the ACL is eight times more common in females than it is in males. This means that often girls do not take the time to build the necessary muscle around their knee and hamstring. With the high risk of tearing their ACLs, this year the girls teams are taking  preventative measures, like using shoe inserts and strengthening their hamstrings, to protect the ligament.

According to Doctor Kevin Latz, an orthopedic surgeon at Children’s Mercy Hospital, the ACL is a pinky-sized ligament connecting the  front of the femur to the back of the tibia, stabilizing the knee. Teams of doctors have been working on finding a reason why female  athletes are more susceptible to tearing their ACL, but no definite reason has been found.

According to an article in the New York Times Magazine suggests, as girls’ estrogen levels rise, their ligaments become more flexible and  are more injury-prone when not accompanied by enough muscle. Female athletes who are especially dedicated to their sports often do not  give their muscles enough time to rest in order to build the muscle needed to sustain their activity.

“Two thirds of the injuries are non-contact,” Latz said. “Usually they occur when there is a rapid change of direction.”

Senior Andrea Erikson’s injury during her sophomore year softball tryout fell into this category. She sprinted around the bases toward home, slowed down because the base was in front of a pole in the auxiliary gym. As she changed her direction split-second, her knee gave out and she tore her ACL.

Once an ACL is torn, there are two possible options — one option is avoiding surgery and risking the knee giving out unexpectedly, and the second being reconstructive surgery.

“Right now there is a movement to use the tissue that is already in the knee to reconstruct the ACL, but we have not been successful yet,” Latz said. “So, you can use the tissue which is typically the hamstring in a female, or cadaver tissue.”

Surgeons use a cadaver ligament to reconnect the femur–the thigh bone–to the tibia, the shin bone. After the surgery athletes have a short recovery period and then they begin physical rehabilitation for approximately six months.

“It is suggested to work on strengthening your body, work on jumping and strengthening awareness and strengthening your hamstrings,” Latz said.

A little over a year after Dressman was fully recovered from her right ACL injury, she was at soccer practice with her club team playing five versus two when her teammate passed her the ball and it hit her left knee. After another trip to the emergency room, she found out that she had torn the ACL in her other knee. This is increasingly common in female athletes who are extremely competitive in their sports and therefore do not take the time to rejuvenate and rest. While a way to prevent ACL injuries in females is to strengthen the leg muscles, in order to add muscle the athlete needs to take a day of rest after a hard work out. The rehabilitation includes plyometrics, which is a series of controlled jumps. Some athletes go through pool exercises that will strengthen the knee area and the hamstring.

With the injuries to girl’s teams in the past, Dressman and Erikson both are going to move forward with a little more precaution.

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