Soccer specific rehab is an intense process and here is why. Girls soccer player’s bodies are a gluttony for punishment. The sport has such high demands that I frequently see overuse injuries due to poor mechanics.
Left leg succumbs to very large forces if not landing correctly.
Our body weight conceals a lot of force. For example, an 80 lb athlete produces up to 240 lbs of force that unleashes itself on their poor knees. Upon landing from being air born we often carry a force of up to 3x our body weight (Nicholas Romanov, Triathlon Techniques). So it is in everyone’s interest to learn how to handle such force in the most efficient way. However, we are often assumed to know how to run and know how to cut. So the athletes just start sprinting, just start cutting without really knowing how to do it appropriately. Enter the villain of the youth soccer player: overuse injuries.
The most common mistake I see is over striding during running. This technique puts your foot far ahead of your body weight and succumbs the front leg to incredible forces for longer periods of time. The result is knee pain, shin splints, hip flexor strain, overly tight calves and many other issues.
Soccer math.
Ok so you run with your heel instead of the ball of your foot, big deal. The thing is all efforts add up. Let’s do a simple math problem. In a mile we take approximately 2,000 steps. That means a 14 year girl is beating her knee into the ground on one leg 1,000 times. Now we all know that a soccer player runs a lot more then a mile. During the game it is estimated a soccer player covers 7 miles and sometimes up to 9 based on position.
Check out this awesome resource for how many miles are run on average by each sport.
So that’s 7,000 reps of beating your leg into the ground during one match! Then what happens is each one of those steps taken inefficiently results in the well known over use injuries.
But this is not even the worst of it. This is what I see happen: poor running leads to hamstring strain. A hamstring strain is a major muscle that gives our knee stability. When that muscle is functioning at 50% during an intense moment in a match the kid tears their ACL!
But I love soccer!
Most people will throw their hands up and say: “It’s ridiculous they play too much all year around.” But the matter of fact is that sport specific training demands many miles in practice. An athlete is truly overworked only when they are showing signs of mental fatigue, weight loss and constant soreness. When they can’t get enough soccer and their teammates it’s not too much. The true issue is HOW they run all those miles. It is common practice to stay out of a sport to let this injury heal and that injury heal to only return them to the same poor running patterns. Guess what? The same thing is going to happen. They will get their 7,000 pounding steps in one practice and will be sidelined again after a few months.
It is time to break the cycle. Soccer sport specific rehab should take a look at all the aspects that the athlete has to face in a game: how do they run, how do they cut, how do they stop. How do they strike the ball and how do they move with and without the ball. You have to fundamentally change how they understand movement. Teach them how to land safely, run with the least amount of pounding and understand body weight distribution so they don’t rely on their ligaments for support.
Nothing worthwhile is easy, but this is what it takes. If you are interested in learning more please check out this article.
I see clients in Southern Illinois and Missouri.
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