Mother May I? Female Body Bio-Mechanics Body Typing Before Picking Your Sport
What makes an athlete be ideal for or select a sport? Michael Jordan's sons shot hoop, but Mark Spitz prowess in the pool only figuratively fathered Phelps, his kids never became swimmers. Genetics of course a good indication of body type, but what other factors go into your ability to have a potential career in a particular sport? In Baltimore at the American College of Sports Medicine 57th Annual Meeting suggest that a comprehensive analysis of female bio-mechanics during early pubertal growth spurts can predict which athletes are most likely to experience anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tears in the future. The news report went on to say " finding is important because it might allow for early intervention in high-risk athletes to prevent ACL injuries.""Before puberty, the incidence of ACL tears is equal in boys and girls. However, beginning at age 12, The ACL is one of those ligaments in the knee joint highly strained by lateral movement. If you bust yours you can still run, but dodging a tackle, no longer possible. In youth boys and girls have about the same rate of injuries. As young women develop their female hip structure and stance these tears become 10 times more common in females. The researchers postulate that early training in boys may be partly protective, not just 'hips and ass' (I'm paraphrasing here). Perhaps strengthening their joints as they grow will avoid injuries. The researchers felt one factor in the USA was that some of these girls didn't do their sport earlier enough and didn't get enough strength training to give the girls a spurt of muscle and mechanics at the same time as they grow in height. This results in what the Marilynd researchers are calling, bio-mechanical stresses that may lead to ACL tear." Prevent Injuries? How? Steering you from the soccer field to the pool or from the gym to the coxswain position? Is that why the Lincoln Ballet school has been reported to x-ray young girls hips to check their ability to plié? China's athletic-training program has done this for decades, which is hand select body types for certain sports And beginning strength training early enough has not been the issue in China.. It had been reported before the Bejing Olympics that nearly 400,000 young hopeful were developed in 3,000 sports schools after being tagged in elementary school and sent to train at these state-run sports academies before the age of nine. Physical characteristics are prominent in who is selected to train in a particular sport. One story that is a bitter reminder that systematic selection might not be wise is that of the tragedy of Dong Fangxiao, January 23, 1986 in Hebei, North China, competing as a birth year 1983, making her past the age of 16 when she'd be allowed to join the Olympic team, she competed virtually flawlessly in spite of her age of 14 and helped. China win Bronze at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Through a situation of odd events her real age at the time of competition was revealed recently and she was stripped of her medal, as were her teammates. Later it was reported that she had hip dysplasia, so her potentially long brilliant career was cut short anyway, so maybe we will just have to put a bit more science into picking those gymnasts, China?