It’s also especially important that female basketball players practice jumping and landing correctly.

I might be overseeing a women's program at a club next year.

The state NTC does specific exercises, jumping ones with a focus on landing, to strengthen the hamstrings and quads. I might have to pay close attention to them to minimise injury.

Thanks for posting the link, Arthur.

An interesting topic for sure though the solutions may vary I think we are all agreed there is a problem.

Kicker and the.football.God do you gents have any links or reading material that would provide more info?

Just had ACL surgery yesterday. It's killing me at the moment, wasn't bad last night but today I'm feeling it big time.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ralphranalli/beautiful-teaching-girls-soccer-the-boston-breaker

Beautiful: Teaching Girls Soccer the Boston Breakers Way

Soccer has big benefits for girls. Risks too: concussions, bad coaching & blown ACLs. This film explores the right way to teach it.

“Beautiful: Teaching Girls Soccer the Boston Breakers Way”

The Word Syndicate, a Massachusetts-based production company, is teaming up with the Boston Breakers, one of America’s premier women’s professional soccer teams, to produce a groundbreaking new film for girls called “Beautiful: Teaching Girls Soccer the Boston Breakers Way.”

Please remember: Kickstarter funding is all or nothing – if we don’t reach our fundraising goal in 30 days, “Beautiful” will not be made.

Girls soccer:

America is on top of the world when it comes to women’s soccer. US Women’s National Team stars like Abby Wambach, Alex Morgan and Hope Solo are regular favorites to win Women’s World Cups and Olympic gold medals.

In fields and parks across the country, millions of girls are playing the game. On any given day, a girls’ team may be playing on one field, while a team of boys is playing on the one next door. The games look nearly identical in most respects – a ball, two goals, cleats, shin guards, jerseys. Sometimes it’s only the ponytails that give it away.

Maybe that’s one of the reasons that there are so few resources for coaches and parents specifically about coaching and parenting girls who play soccer.

What we’re doing:

I’m passionate about soccer. I recently joined a health club solely because the televisions on the elliptical machines get an obscure cable channel that televises Italian and Spanish professional games.

But as much as I love watching Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, I love the women’s game even more. To me it's truly the beautiful game. It’s more honest (less diving) and often played with more passion. And as the father of three daughters, what I love most about it is the sight of strong, confident women achieving collaborative greatness and competitive success in the greatest team sport in the world. In myriad ways, those women emulate the qualities I hope to instill in my own daughters as they grow.

Soccer offers huge benefits for girls. I’ve seen it myself on the practice field – the self-confidence, the friendships, the joy taken in hard work and achievement. And those are just the results you can see. Studies show that girls who play soccer and other sports reap benefits that stay with them throughout their lives, including:

Better grades in school
Better jobs after college
Lowered risks of obesity and other health problems
Lowered likelihood of involvement in early sexual activity

But girls’ soccer also has a lesser-known dark side. Young female players are different from boys in fundamental ways, both physically and psychologically – and the failure to address those differences has led to a rash of problems. Here are just a few:

Girls who play soccer are more likely to suffer a serious concussion than any other young athlete except boys who play tackle football (more than boys who play soccer, lacrosse, or hockey).
After puberty, girls are as much as six times more likely to suffer a serious knee injury (ACL, MCL) injury than a boy playing the same sport.
Inappropriate coaching and competitive pressure to win and train harder and longer are resulting in higher rates of burnout and girls quitting, potentially depriving them of a lifetime of benefits.
The top women’s coaches in the world all say that girl athletes process information and feedback very differently from boys – but that those differences aren’t widely understood or regularly incorporated into youth coaching.

Too often, adults approach girls’ soccer as if it were the same as the boys’ game, or coach it the same way their high school coach coached them.

“Beautiful: Teaching Girls Soccer the Boston Breakers Way” will explore the unique characteristics of the young female athlete, and examine proactive approaches to teaching girls the game the right way and to avoiding pitfalls like injuries and burnout.

Aspects of the female athlete that are misunderstood can often be turned into advantages. Because girls mature socially faster than boys, they care more about their social standing in a team structure. Because they’re reluctant to stand out, they may seem less competitive. But when that early social development can be focused and harnessed for the good of the team, it turns into a powerful tool for collective success.

“Beautiful” will explore techniques for teaching the whole girl, the entire person, not just the player.

Because of parents and coaches are the primary influences for girls who play soccer, and because of the wealth of information we've found in our search, each DVD will include two versions of "Beautiful." One will focus on information and advice most relevant to parents, while the other will be specifically geared toward coaches.

Who we are: Boston Breakers

The Boston Breakers are one of the oldest top-level women’s teams in the US and one of the original women’s professional franchises.

Since they were established as one of the charter members of the Women’s United Soccer Association (WUSA), the Breakers have feature some of the top players on the planet on their roster, including US National Team legend Kristine Lilly and stars Amy Rodriguez, Heather Mitts, Amy LePeilbet, Lauren Cheney and Rachel Buehler, as well as international stars Kelly Smith (England) and Maren Meinart (Germany). The Breakers coaching staff has been led by luminaries such as Pia Sundhage and Tony DiCicco.

The current team will compete in the newly-launched National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL), which is being supported by the national soccer federations of the US, Canada and Mexico. The roster features current and former US National Team members Sydney Leroux, Heather O’Reilly and Cat Whitehill and Canadian National Team star Rhian Wilkinson, and star Australian striker Kyah Simon.

As part of a renewed commitment to promoting a healthy and development-oriented approach to girls’ soccer, this year the team established the Boston Breakers Academy for girls ages 8 through 12. The Academy focuses on the skills of the game, developing an appreciation for sport and a positive work ethic, and teaching basic principles that lead to success on the field and off.

Members of the current team and Head Coach Lisa Cole will be contributing to “Beautiful,” appearing alongside nationally-recognized experts in positive coaching techniques, sports medicine and girls’ athletics.

Who we are: The Word Syndicate (Ralph Ranalli)

I’ve been a writer and content producer my entire adult life. Before founding The Word Syndicate, I was a television producer for PBS (WGBH-Boston), a multimedia producer and journalist for Boston.com and the Boston Globe, and a newspaper reporter and author. I am also an adjunct professor of digital journalism at Emerson College.

I have a track record of throwing myself into projects and causes that interest me and that I care deeply about. For part of my career I covered organized crime and wrote a book (“Deadly Alliance”) about the FBI’s organized crime informant program. I co-founded a First Amendment advocacy project that held public events raising awareness about threats to free speech and expression.

Now I’m a multiplatform storyteller for clients who are mostly nonprofits, including an agency that works with developmentally disabled adults, a regional skin cancer foundation, and a nonpartisan political think tank that promotes research-based, collaborative public policymaking. As a video producer, I specialize in buzz-worthy content and my projects have included a parody of the opening scene of “The Godfather” with Boston Mayor Tom Menino in the Marlon Brando role.

In the soccer world, I am the president of Newton Girls Soccer, the largest girls-only, nonprofit, town-based soccer program in New England. I have three daughters ranging in age from kindergarten to U12, who I have coached since they were old enough to play.

Where your money goes:

In addition to sweet rewards, you will receive the satisfaction of knowing that a talented team of videographers, producers, animators and graphic artists will be putting your donation to work on a truly groundbreaking film project. We also need funding for location and equipment rentals, footage and music licensing fees, web hosting, promotion and DVD production cost.

Thanks for your support.

Ralph Ranalli, Principal and Executive Producer, The Word Syndicate

Lee Billiard, General Manager, Boston Breakers

Risks and challenges Learn about accountability on Kickstarter

W.C. Fields once famously said: "One should never work with animals or children." Well, we've got the animals part covered, but we will be working with a bunch of kids whose dream is to win the Ballon d'Or, not an Oscar. It's worked out OK so far, but you never know. We will also have to juggle production around the busy schedule of a professional soccer team trying to train hard, be competitive, and build a new professional league all at the same time.

...Phys Ed September 4, 2013, 12:01 am 47 Comments
What to Do if Your Child Tears an A.C.L.
By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/04/what-to-do-if-your-child-tears-an-a-c-l/?_r=0

Before my 16-year-old son wracked his knee this summer, I considered myself a well-informed medical consumer and a relaxed, dispassionate sports parent. It turned out that I was neither.

The experience has been disconcerting but also educational, allowing me to develop a checklist of practical information to help other families deal with a serious sports-related knee injury, and particularly a torn anterior cruciate ligament.

In our case, my son, a frequent freestyle skier in the wintertime, was practicing a double back flip on an indoor trampoline in July when he landed off balance and torqued his left knee. The resulting pop reputedly resounded like gunfire through the facility. His mother was not in attendance. His mother could not have changed the outcome had she been there. His mother needs to stop regretting that she cannot reverse time or protect her offspring from the consequences of physics. This is lesson No. 1.

An M.R.I. scan of my son’s knee, completed the next day, showed that he had ruptured his A.C.L., and also torn his medial collateral ligament, and slightly frayed one of his menisci, the little pillows of cartilage that cushion the bones in the knee. This particular knee injury is called the “terrible triad,” a term I could have spent my parenthood happily not learning.



It is important, however, to be fully conversant with your child’s injury. Ask for copies of any scans and for accompanying radiologist’s reports, which might not otherwise be included. Ask to have terminology explained in excruciating detail. If your child is a teenager, he or she should be in attendance during these explanations, I think, although that decision is yours. Bear in mind that a teenager may soon be in college and needing to explain his or her medical history to doctors and coaches there.

The above advice applies to any injury, of course. But dealing with A.C.L. tears, which, by some estimates, occur at the rate of about 40 per hour in the United States, requires certain unique considerations from parents.

For the first few weeks after an A.C.L tear, the most widely accepted treatment involves icing the joint, performing range-of-motion exercises, and bracing, if needed, to allow your child to walk. Visit a pediatric sports medicine specialist for the brace fitting; if your child is small or lanky, adult-sized braces, we discovered, tend to slip down the leg.

Use these weeks to consult orthopedic surgeons about why you might not need an orthopedic surgeon. Reconstructing a torn A.C.L. is common, but requires fashioning a new ligament from other parts of your child’s leg or from a cadaver. The surgery is invasive and may not improve long-term knee function when compared to physical therapy alone. In a study published earlier this year, active adults who had opted for physical therapy after an A.C.L. tear had knees that were basically the same after five years as those of adults who had undergone surgery, based on clinical measures of stability and function.

But active adults are not my son, who is a teenager — a group little studied so far in terms of long-term treatment outcomes — and plans to return to varsity soccer and skiing. Anecdotally, athletes perform better with surgically rebuilt knees. So discuss at length with your surgeon whether reconstruction is necessary or desirable for your son or daughter. And talk, too, with your child about the future. One A.C.L. tear can contribute to an increased risk of another tear later, especially if he or she returns to competitive sports.

“Sometimes you need to consider whether just maybe your child should do something else,” said Dr. Andrew Veitch, a professor of orthopedic surgery at the University of New Mexico and the head team physician for the university’s sports teams. A young athlete with a wounded knee might, for example, want to think about taking up low-impact swimming or bicycling instead of returning to soccer or football, in which case he or she could probably skip surgery.

But my son loves soccer and consequently will undergo knee surgery with Dr. Veitch next week, using tissue from his left kneecap to build a new A.C.L. We could have opted to have the surgeon use a piece of his hamstring instead. But some — although not all — studies suggest that removing a strip from the hamstring permanently weakens the muscle. Again, quiz your surgeon about which method he or she prefers and why.

“Be wary,” however, of cadaver ligaments for a young athlete, Dr. Martha Murray, an orthopedic surgeon and researcher at Harvard Medical School, told me. A number of studies have shown that these tissues, which are frozen and sterilized to kill any infections, tend to be too fragile to withstand the forces applied to them during sports like football, basketball and soccer. Too frequently, they rip.

Meanwhile, whether you decide to proceed with surgery or not, gather recommendations from physicians and friends about local physical therapists with lengthy experience dealing with A.C.L. rehabilitation. A well-designed physical therapy program should help to restore not just your child’s joint range of motion, but his or her balance and proprioception, or sense of body positioning, as well. Researchers, Dr. Murray said, suspect that tearing an A.C.L. severs the ligament’s intricate connections to the nervous system, making the knee and adjoining muscles a millisecond less responsive during movement, which could contribute to reinjury later. With proper supervision, hopping, lunging and catching a ball while perching on one leg could help your child to regain fuller control of his or her lower body.

Whether you encourage your child to maintain close ties with his or her sports team during this time is up to you. It may seem as if showing up for games and practices should buck up an injured athlete. But for many, such vicarious involvement “is frustrating and depressing,” said Dr. Murray, who recommends that her young patients volunteer at an animal shelter or find another means to productively use their after-school time and avoid the playing field.

The same advice applies to parents. I am sorry to say that I have mourned my son’s absence from the soccer field this fall more than he has. Instead, he has been busily strengthening his leg and body for surgery, talking about next season, and remodeling himself into a man. If we are all lucky, I will be that grown up, someday.

I wonder what the ratios are like in Australia? Netball is a shocker for the knees, all that sudden stopping and twisting.

Start with the FIFA 11:

http://www.f-marc.com/downloads/posters_generic/english.pdf

the manual, has more detail and shows what mistakes to look for:

http://f-marc.com/11plus/manual/

Focus on 7, 8, 10, 11. Focus on the beginner end and do those well rather than getting too advanced.

I'd change the walking lunges for split squats as Lunges are an advanced exercise and are often given to athletes that aren't ready for them. You could throw in some glute bridges and some backwards/forwards/sideways walks with a theraband loop just above the knees.

It's not fancy but you can do this with a group without equipment and something is always better than nothing.