VITAL SIGNS: MUSCLE GROUPS
VITAL SIGNS: MUSCLE GROUPS; A Safer Stance for Women's Sports
By NANCY STEDMAN
Published: February 16, 1999
That upright posture so dear to mothers and governesses may contribute to women's high rate of injuries to the anterior cruciate ligaments (A.C.L.'s) that crisscross the knee and help keep it stable.
Three-dimensional motion analysis of 20 recreational athletes found that women run and perform some other athletic movements in a much less crouched position than men, causing the quadricep muscles in the fronts of the thighs to generate a great deal of power. In an awkward movement, like landing on uneven ground, the highly activated quadriceps have enough force to pull the tibia, or shin bone, forward and tear the A.C.L., said Dr. William E. Garrett Jr., the chairman of the department of orthopedic surgery at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and an author of a study presented recently to the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons.
In pivoting movements, videotaped for the study, women crouched less than men at the moment of impact with the ground. Similar differences were found for forward and sideways running, movements that are common in soccer and basketball. At the college level, A.C.L. injuries are two to three times more common among women than men in soccer and three to four times more common in basketball, according to the National Collegiate Athletic Association.
Researchers are studying the biomechanics that explain why women crouch less, said Dr. Letha Y. Griffin, a team physician for Georgia State University. ''Possibly it feels more natural because women have a lower center or gravity,'' she said.
Dr. Garrett said women can be retrained to bend more and thus protect themselves.
Torn A.C.L.'s are often repaired by grafting tendons from elsewhere in the body. ''The graft acts like a scaffold on which new connective tissue grows,'' Dr. Griffin said. NANCY STEDMAN
Photo: A ligament injury took Shea Ralph of Connecticut out of the 1997 N.C.A.A. tournament. (Associated Press)