Is this in the future for the GDA?

The European model works on the Boys side for the sole reason that the level of training and competition at the 16/17 year old level is professional. These kids are training and playing against players that are 20 to 24. Many of the programs are residential. These youth phenoms are working their way up to the Senior Team and treated by the clubs like valuable assets (because they are). These 16 year old European players have professional contracts putting development and training first, with school second.

We are so far from the European model that its simply not relevant (unless Article 19 can be repealed or changed).

Edit: My point is that development of soccer players that are 18+ IN THE US is very inferior.
Plus the boys in Europe and the US aren't asked what their GPA is, SAT score and standard of excellence is when their 14 years old. However, our girls get triple scored to make it to the top in which in all reality is playing college soccer: Soccer ability, GPA/SAT Scores and All Around Excellence Score. Imagine a young Messi chat going like this: "You're one hell of player little Lionel, what's your GPA looking like in 7th grade? How's the community service going? MWN is on to it too. Work our dds over by telling them their is a chance to make the big dance (fat chance folks) someday but you must sacrifice everything and NOT Participate in any outside competition (unless of course you can find a club that won't enforce the expectations for all TEAM members and hand out waivers for anyone needing one).
 
I don't want this to devolve into a girls v. boys debate, but the reality is that boys have different considerations than girls. The pathway for boys to the National Team or professional team is not through college, which stunts development, the best path is skip college and sign with a European or Latin American program once the player turns 18. Boys are physiologically better adapted to handle 4 training and 1 game day (because of bone structures, tighter tendons and ligaments, muscle mass/placement, larger ligaments, etc.).

The pathway for girls is through college. College admittance requires balance and good grades. Its asinine for US Soccer to tell the girls who have a much different path to devote so much time to soccer to support the DA League.

There are 65 clubs with U15 DA programs. Each team has roughly 20 players (some more and some less). 65x20 = 1,300 girls. There are about 20 spots open for the U15 gnt, which means that 64 girls exist in the program to benefit 1. Odds are roughly 1:64 make the GNT, which means that 1,280 girls will practice 4 days a week, play 1 or 2 games over the weekend for those 20 girls that US Soccer has its eye on. Many of the 1,280 girls will suffer lower leg injuries, stress fractures and have a very tough time keeping their grades up because of the training and travel demands. Its not uncommon here in SoCal that training on a DA team will consume 3-4 hours or more per day (time in car, training, time in car), with players trying to squeeze in homework in the car and social events are simply declined.

Why is it asinine? To improve the quality of the sport, kids need to play more. If kids don't want to do it, they don't have to. There are plenty of options. But for a governing body with an interest in improving the quality of play, it seems very reasonable to offer an option with a slightly more rigorous training schedule. The fact is that many sports require a lot heavier training load - four days a week isn't really that much. How many days a week do you think all those teenage girls at the US Open have been playing?

And who cares about the GNT? That is nothing more than a red herring. The league would have already fallen apart if kids were only playing in the league for a shot on the GNT. Believe it or not, some kids play a lot because they like it, want to get as good as they can (wherever that may take them), and want to play consistently against a high level of competition.

And what evidence is there to support that kids in DA suffer more injuries? Is it really more safe to practice 2 days a week and then go play 90 minutes over the weekend? And then go play multiple HS games during the week?
 
Why is it asinine? To improve the quality of the sport, kids need to play more. If kids don't want to do it, they don't have to. There are plenty of options. But for a governing body with an interest in improving the quality of play, it seems very reasonable to offer an option with a slightly more rigorous training schedule. The fact is that many sports require a lot heavier training load - four days a week isn't really that much. How many days a week do you think all those teenage girls at the US Open have been playing?

And who cares about the GNT? That is nothing more than a red herring. The league would have already fallen apart if kids were only playing in the league for a shot on the GNT. Believe it or not, some kids play a lot because they like it, want to get as good as they can (wherever that may take them), and want to play consistently against a high level of competition.

And what evidence is there to support that kids in DA suffer more injuries? Is it really more safe to practice 2 days a week and then go play 90 minutes over the weekend? And then go play multiple HS games during the week?

A lot of commentors on this forum (heck public advice givers in general) want to paint kids with a broad brush. Their advice applies to median kids. All kids are different and elite athlete kids are really different. I chuckle, as does my daughter, when my son claims 4 days of 1.5 hour soccer practice is a lot. My teenage daughter trains for dance 20+ hours a week and has done so for years along with HS cheer now. I think its over the top and wish she would scale back some of her dance. She loves it and still maintains great grades and a social life...it's her choice. My wife and I keep a very watchful eye on her physical and mental health. I say this not to brag, but to point out that soccer training is nothing compared to the commitment of other sports and that a higher level of activity is OK for some kids.
 
Why is it asinine? To improve the quality of the sport, kids need to play more. If kids don't want to do it, they don't have to. There are plenty of options. But for a governing body with an interest in improving the quality of play, it seems very reasonable to offer an option with a slightly more rigorous training schedule. The fact is that many sports require a lot heavier training load - four days a week isn't really that much. How many days a week do you think all those teenage girls at the US Open have been playing?

And who cares about the GNT? That is nothing more than a red herring. The league would have already fallen apart if kids were only playing in the league for a shot on the GNT. Believe it or not, some kids play a lot because they like it, want to get as good as they can (wherever that may take them), and want to play consistently against a high level of competition.

And what evidence is there to support that kids in DA suffer more injuries? Is it really more safe to practice 2 days a week and then go play 90 minutes over the weekend? And then go play multiple HS games during the week?

The evidence relating to overuse injuries due to specialization.
  • According to a 2013 study, adolescents who spend more hours per week than their age playing one sport are 70% more likely to experience overuse injuries than other injuries. (Risks of Specialized Training and Growth for Injury in Young Athletes: A Prospective Cohort Study, See, https://aap.confex.com/aap/2013/webprogram/Paper21503.html)
  • Kids who play one sport for eight months out of the year are nearly three times more likely to experience an overuse injury in their hip or knee. Prevalence of Sport Specialization in High School Athletics: A 1-Year Observational Study: https://doi.org/10.1177/0363546516629943)
  • Athletes with high specialization were at an increased risk of sustaining an overuse injury compared with athletes with low (pooled relative risk [RR] ratio: 1.81; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.26–2.60) and moderate (pooled RR: 1.18; 95% CI: 1.05–1.33) specialization. Athletes with moderate specialization were at a higher risk of injury compared with athletes with low specialization (RR: 1.39 [95% CI: 1.04–1.87]). (Sport Specialization and Risk of Overuse Injuries: A Systematic Review With Meta-analysis)
With regard to female soccer players:
Because the Girls DA has only just begun there are no studies dealing expressly with the Girls DA, but there are many, many, many studies that supply overwhelming evidence that female elite athletes are more prone to overuse injuries, including stress fractures, lower extremity injuries and concussions.

The conclusion reached by almost all medical professionals is to treat female athletes different than their male counterparts by recognizing the physiological differences and adjusting training routines. US Soccer with the Girls DA has essentially said ... F'that.

I have a problem with that.
 
A lot of commentors on this forum (heck public advice givers in general) want to paint kids with a broad brush. Their advice applies to median kids. All kids are different and elite athlete kids are really different. I chuckle, as does my daughter, when my son claims 4 days of 1.5 hour soccer practice is a lot. My teenage daughter trains for dance 20+ hours a week and has done so for years along with HS cheer now. I think its over the top and wish she would scale back some of her dance. She loves it and still maintains great grades and a social life...it's her choice. My wife and I keep a very watchful eye on her physical and mental health. I say this not to brag, but to point out that soccer training is nothing compared to the commitment of other sports and that a higher level of activity is OK for some kids.

Uh, no. The problem with soccer specifically - at least for girls GDA - is not merely that they train 4x a week. Of course, exercising 4x a week is good for kids in general. However, it is the fact that they train at one sport only 4x a week for 10 months a year that presents one of a combination of factors unique to GDA that makes the injury risk so high and unacceptable. First, GDA's all consuming time commitment forces kids to specialize in one sport, and I suspect even the most hardened GDA sycophants will at least acknowledge that specializing in one sport results in an increased injury risk. This is compounded by the fact that these kids are specializing in the one sport with by far the highest knee injury risk. Unlike dance, soccer involves the type of repeated and non-choreographed start, stop, turn hard and other awkward movements that are most likely to result in catastrophic knee injuries. Second, part of problem with GDA is that the trainings that USSF expects from the clubs compounds those injury risks over time. If you spend a lot of time at GDA practices for top clubs, you'll see a tremendous focus on activities that help develop first touches, skill with the ball, and other activity that is really helpful for developing great soccer skills but do not really focus on hard core fitness. Hardly ever will you see kids walking out of a GDA practice gassed. So you have all these kids who are "elite" athletes, but not incredibly fit ones, that USSF then expects to go out and play 90 straight minutes as if they were professional athletes who can spend 10 hours a week or more on strength and conditioning training. And, as I have said many times before and supported with medical studies much to the chagrin of the GDA mafia, making kids play 90 straight minutes is borderline child abuse, especially when they aren't in incredible physical condition. There is no other sport or even soccer league in the U.S. that expects teenage girls to play 45 straight minutes with only one short break, followed by another 45 straight minutes. No time outs. No quarters. No substitutions for most of the players. Just go out and do what you're told until you get hurt. Seriously, the last 5 minutes of the first half and the last 10 minutes of GDA games are universally awful and cringeworthy due to the lack of fitness and the dangerous s**t that happens when the players are fatigued like that. There is literally no legitimate reason to have a rule that requires 6 kids a game to play 90 straight minutes. None.

As for your comment about advice applying only to "the median" kids and that "elite" athletes are different, that's just nonsense. As I have mentioned before, 6 of the dozen or so most accomplished U17s during the last WC cycle (all GDA players) tore their ACLs. That's 50% of the most elite of the elite youth soccer players in the United States down with torn ACLs in less than a year. The more "elite" you are as a GDA soccer player, the more likely you're next.
 
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A lot of commentors on this forum (heck public advice givers in general) want to paint kids with a broad brush. Their advice applies to median kids. All kids are different and elite athlete kids are really different. I chuckle, as does my daughter, when my son claims 4 days of 1.5 hour soccer practice is a lot. My teenage daughter trains for dance 20+ hours a week and has done so for years along with HS cheer now. I think its over the top and wish she would scale back some of her dance. She loves it and still maintains great grades and a social life...it's her choice. My wife and I keep a very watchful eye on her physical and mental health. I say this not to brag, but to point out that soccer training is nothing compared to the commitment of other sports and that a higher level of activity is OK for some kids.

All my advice applies to high level youth athletes, so I hope you are not referring to me by the comment above. Median kids are not in the GDA or ECNL so not relevant for this discussion.

My daughter was a high-level cheerleader. In HS she did sideline cheer and competition cheer. She practiced a good 12 to 16 hours per week between both teams. There were times were she couldn't sleep well because of the injuries she suffered as a result of competition cheer. She was the main base, the girl holding, throwing and catching the Flyer. Her team won multiple National Championships and Grand Championships at JAMZ Nationals. As a leader on the team she was constantly practicing and training through nagging injuries and pain. Multiple doctor visits, wrapping her wrist, sitting out some training and today she has permanent nerve damage in her wrist because she was one of those "elite" athletes that played through the pain and refused to sit and heal. The injury was a repetitive injury because of her specialization.

The physical nature of dance is far different than soccer, football, hockey and other contact sports. Its rare that dancers have their legs swept out by a slide tackle that pins their ankle to the mat, concussed by another dancer jumping up trying to head a ball, or have another dancer take them off balance and suffer an ACL injury. Dancing is an aerobic sport so I can appreciate why she might not understand how the physical nature of high level soccer exacerbates the physical toll on young athletes ... but she will find out soon once she is immersed in competition cheer.
 
The evidence relating to overuse injuries due to specialization.
  • According to a 2013 study, adolescents who spend more hours per week than their age playing one sport are 70% more likely to experience overuse injuries than other injuries. (Risks of Specialized Training and Growth for Injury in Young Athletes: A Prospective Cohort Study, See, https://aap.confex.com/aap/2013/webprogram/Paper21503.html)
  • Kids who play one sport for eight months out of the year are nearly three times more likely to experience an overuse injury in their hip or knee. Prevalence of Sport Specialization in High School Athletics: A 1-Year Observational Study: https://doi.org/10.1177/0363546516629943)
  • Athletes with high specialization were at an increased risk of sustaining an overuse injury compared with athletes with low (pooled relative risk [RR] ratio: 1.81; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.26–2.60) and moderate (pooled RR: 1.18; 95% CI: 1.05–1.33) specialization. Athletes with moderate specialization were at a higher risk of injury compared with athletes with low specialization (RR: 1.39 [95% CI: 1.04–1.87]). (Sport Specialization and Risk of Overuse Injuries: A Systematic Review With Meta-analysis)
With regard to female soccer players:
Because the Girls DA has only just begun there are no studies dealing expressly with the Girls DA, but there are many, many, many studies that supply overwhelming evidence that female elite athletes are more prone to overuse injuries, including stress fractures, lower extremity injuries and concussions.

The conclusion reached by almost all medical professionals is to treat female athletes different than their male counterparts by recognizing the physiological differences and adjusting training routines. US Soccer with the Girls DA has essentially said ... F'that.

I have a problem with that.

It's obvious that the more someone plays a sport, the more likely that they will become injured. Injuries are not all equal. Overuse injuries are typically tendinitis or maybe shin splints. Concussions are not overuse injuries - a concussion can occur in a car accident. You also need to start with the baseline odds. To say something is more likely to occur, in isolation, is meaningless. If there is a .01% chance of an injury occurring, but playing 1 day more or simply the fact that the kid is a girl will increase the likelihood of injury 100%, who cares? You've increased the risk by 100% of .01%. While interesting, it has nothing to do with logical risk analysis.

The standard before GDA was ECNL or an equivalent league and then play high school soccer. Some kids played other sports as well, but those sports are usually limited track or cross country (BTW, kids in GDA still run track and cross country). Is a kid playing ECNL all year and high school soccer really less prone to injury than some kid playing GDA all year? That's what your original statement suggested, but it isn't supported by any of those studies. Nor do they indicate if any increase in risk is actually significant.

FWIW, with respect to specialization, the studies you cite seem to contradict your point: "There were no differences in the history of hip, knee, or ankle injuries between athletes who self-classified as single sport versus those who self-classified as multisport."
 
Second, part of problem with GDA is that the trainings that USSF expects from the clubs compounds those injury risks over time. If you spend a lot of time at GDA practices for top clubs, you'll see a tremendous focus on activities that help develop first touches, skill with the ball, and other activity that is really helpful for developing great soccer skills but do not really focus on hard core fitness. Hardly ever will you see kids walking out of a GDA practice gassed. So you have all these kids who are "elite" athletes, but not incredibly fit ones, that USSF then expects to go out and play 90 straight minutes as if they were professional athletes who can spend 10 hours a week or more on strength and conditioning training.

This is true, but it's not really a GDA issue. It's a club issue. Some GDA clubs focus extensively on proper endurance training, with gradual build-up. Other GDA clubs still treat every training day like it's 1995 - scrimmage and maybe a few drills. The worst injuries seem to occur at the beginning of each year when girls are out of shape and clubs don't build-up the training (or never do proper training).
 
This is true, but it's not really a GDA issue. It's a club issue. Some GDA clubs focus extensively on proper endurance training, with gradual build-up. Other GDA clubs still treat every training day like it's 1995 - scrimmage and maybe a few drills. The worst injuries seem to occur at the beginning of each year when girls are out of shape and clubs don't build-up the training (or never do proper training).
100% agree it's a club issue. And most clubs either don't do jack shit about proper injury prevention or do very little. I really don't understand it.
 
Uh, no. The problem with soccer specifically - at least for girls GDA - is not merely that they train 4x a week. Of course, exercising 4x a week is good for kids in general. However, it is the fact that they train at one sport only 4x a week for 10 months a year that presents one of a combination of factors unique to GDA that makes the injury risk so high and unacceptable. First, GDA's all consuming time commitment forces kids to specialize in one sport, and I suspect even the most hardened GDA sycophants will at least acknowledge that specializing in one sport results in an increased injury risk. This is compounded by the fact that these kids are specializing in the one sport with by far the highest knee injury risk. Unlike dance, soccer involves the type of repeated and non-choreographed start, stop, turn hard and other awkward movements that are most likely to result in catastrophic knee injuries. Second, part of problem with GDA is that the trainings that USSF expects from the clubs compounds those injury risks over time. If you spend a lot of time at GDA practices for top clubs, you'll see a tremendous focus on activities that help develop first touches, skill with the ball, and other activity that is really helpful for developing great soccer skills but do not really focus on hard core fitness. Hardly ever will you see kids walking out of a GDA practice gassed. So you have all these kids who are "elite" athletes, but not incredibly fit ones, that USSF then expects to go out and play 90 straight minutes as if they were professional athletes who can spend 10 hours a week or more on strength and conditioning training. And, as I have said many times before and supported with medical studies much to the chagrin of the GDA mafia, making kids play 90 straight minutes is borderline child abuse, especially when they aren't in incredible physical condition. There is no other sport or even soccer league in the U.S. that expects teenage girls to play 45 straight minutes with only one short break, followed by another 45 straight minutes. No time outs. No quarters. No substitutions for most of the players. Just go out and do what you're told until you get hurt. Seriously, the last 5 minutes of the first half and the last 10 minutes of GDA games are universally awful and cringeworthy due to the lack of fitness and the dangerous s**t that happens when the players are fatigued like that. There is literally no legitimate reason to have a rule that requires 6 kids a game to play 90 straight minutes. None.

As for your comment about advice applying only to "the median" kids and that "elite" athletes are different, that's just nonsense. As I have mentioned before, 6 of the dozen or so most accomplished U17s during the last WC cycle (all GDA players) tore their ACLs. That's 50% of the most elite of the elite youth soccer players in the United States down with torn ACLs in less than a year. The more "elite" you are as a GDA soccer player, the more likely you're next.
Play your ass off and if you get hurt, oh well. I would rather play hard and leave it on the field then tip toe around the field avoiding getting hurt because the D1 is on the line. That's not grit. This is now becoming the "Elitist Soccer Academy." That's one way to get hurt too imo. That's playing soft like Charmin Toilet Paper. I watched college game the other night at it was intense and super physical like sandpaper. It's rough and tough and doesn't feel good when you wipe the dirt off your ass :)
 
It's obvious that the more someone plays a sport, the more likely that they will become injured. Injuries are not all equal. Overuse injuries are typically tendinitis or maybe shin splints. Concussions are not overuse injuries - a concussion can occur in a car accident. You also need to start with the baseline odds. To say something is more likely to occur, in isolation, is meaningless. If there is a .01% chance of an injury occurring, but playing 1 day more or simply the fact that the kid is a girl will increase the likelihood of injury 100%, who cares? You've increased the risk by 100% of .01%. While interesting, it has nothing to do with logical risk analysis.

The standard before GDA was ECNL or an equivalent league and then play high school soccer. Some kids played other sports as well, but those sports are usually limited track or cross country (BTW, kids in GDA still run track and cross country). Is a kid playing ECNL all year and high school soccer really less prone to injury than some kid playing GDA all year? That's what your original statement suggested, but it isn't supported by any of those studies. Nor do they indicate if any increase in risk is actually significant.

FWIW, with respect to specialization, the studies you cite seem to contradict your point: "There were no differences in the history of hip, knee, or ankle injuries between athletes who self-classified as single sport versus those who self-classified as multisport."

OMG. I'd pray for your daughter, but it didn't work the last time I tried that with someone.
 
Uh, no. The problem with soccer specifically - at least for girls GDA - is not merely that they train 4x a week. Of course, exercising 4x a week is good for kids in general. However, it is the fact that they train at one sport only 4x a week for 10 months a year that presents one of a combination of factors unique to GDA that makes the injury risk so high and unacceptable. First, GDA's all consuming time commitment forces kids to specialize in one sport, and I suspect even the most hardened GDA sycophants will at least acknowledge that specializing in one sport results in an increased injury risk. This is compounded by the fact that these kids are specializing in the one sport with by far the highest knee injury risk. Unlike dance, soccer involves the type of repeated and non-choreographed start, stop, turn hard and other awkward movements that are most likely to result in catastrophic knee injuries. Second, part of problem with GDA is that the trainings that USSF expects from the clubs compounds those injury risks over time. If you spend a lot of time at GDA practices for top clubs, you'll see a tremendous focus on activities that help develop first touches, skill with the ball, and other activity that is really helpful for developing great soccer skills but do not really focus on hard core fitness. Hardly ever will you see kids walking out of a GDA practice gassed. So you have all these kids who are "elite" athletes, but not incredibly fit ones, that USSF then expects to go out and play 90 straight minutes as if they were professional athletes who can spend 10 hours a week or more on strength and conditioning training. And, as I have said many times before and supported with medical studies much to the chagrin of the GDA mafia, making kids play 90 straight minutes is borderline child abuse, especially when they aren't in incredible physical condition. There is no other sport or even soccer league in the U.S. that expects teenage girls to play 45 straight minutes with only one short break, followed by another 45 straight minutes. No time outs. No quarters. No substitutions for most of the players. Just go out and do what you're told until you get hurt. Seriously, the last 5 minutes of the first half and the last 10 minutes of GDA games are universally awful and cringeworthy due to the lack of fitness and the dangerous s**t that happens when the players are fatigued like that. There is literally no legitimate reason to have a rule that requires 6 kids a game to play 90 straight minutes. None.

As for your comment about advice applying only to "the median" kids and that "elite" athletes are different, that's just nonsense. As I have mentioned before, 6 of the dozen or so most accomplished U17s during the last WC cycle (all GDA players) tore their ACLs. That's 50% of the most elite of the elite youth soccer players in the United States down with torn ACLs in less than a year. The more "elite" you are as a GDA soccer player, the more likely you're next.

Whoa, slow down there angry cowboy. You missed my point entirely. I was talking specifically about overuse and questioning the claim that 4 days of practice is going to lead to overuse injuries, or burnout. Elite athletes can handle that level of activity and actually need to put in much more to be elite. While I'm a bit of a skeptic of the 10,000 hour theory, I don't think practicing your sport for only 8 hours a week is going to make you a top athlete in that sport.

I actually agree conceptually with some of what you have to say, minus the bitter tone. That's assuming that you said that a 90 minute game is "borderline child abuse" for effect and don't actually believe that. If you do believe that then I'm not sure we can have a rational conversation. Totally agree with you that girls are probably not getting the proper training to decrease the risk factors for a knee injury.

The fact that girls/women are way more susceptible to knee injuries, particularly ACL's, is not breaking news. Practicing 4 days a week is not going to make a girl more prone to an ACL tear because of "overuse". Overuse is not a material risk factor for ACL tears (ready set go Google search to find a study so you can prove me wrong). Improper training and poor conditioning are much more likely to be a risk factor. There is some evidence that specialization is a risk factor (although I think that has more to do with not getting the proper cross training than the act of specialization itself). Just playing soccer is the biggest risk factor for an ACL tear. Yes the more you play soccer the more likely you are of getting a torn ACL, getting concussed, breaking a wrist, etc. But that's a function of odds, not overuse. If you want to significantly decrease your daughter's risk of an ACL tear don't have her play soccer. Scaling down practice from 4 to 3 days a week will have little to no impact.

Yes MWN, injuries in competitive cheer are way too common. I would personally consider competitive cheer a dangerous sport, soccer has risks but I wouldn't consider it dangerous. My daughter's least favorite part of cheer is being the flyer.
 
“The fact that girls/women are way more susceptible to knee injuries, particularly ACL's, is not breaking news. Practicing 4 days a week is not going to make a girl more prone to an ACL tear because of "overuse". Overuse is not a material risk factor for ACL tears (ready set go Google search to find a study so you can prove me wrong). Improper training and poor conditioning are much more likely to be a risk factor”

Here you go Turbo. I have an advanced degree in “Googling”


https://news.engin.umich.edu/2019/0...ter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=August_2019
 
“The fact that girls/women are way more susceptible to knee injuries, particularly ACL's, is not breaking news. Practicing 4 days a week is not going to make a girl more prone to an ACL tear because of "overuse". Overuse is not a material risk factor for ACL tears (ready set go Google search to find a study so you can prove me wrong). Improper training and poor conditioning are much more likely to be a risk factor”

Here you go Turbo. I have an advanced degree in “Googling”


https://news.engin.umich.edu/2019/0...ter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=August_2019

Damn you! Back to 3 days a week practice for my kid. I'll kidding aside, I don't think the headline is reflective of the actual study. Repetitive twisting jump landings is not "overuse", its "overabuse" of the knee. Plus the study doesn't even remotely come close to replicating real world conditions. Reducing risky load cycles is different the general overuse.

I'm about 99% confident that my complete ACL tear was not caused by a one-time event, but an accumulation of tears. I can guarantee you that overuse was not one of my risk factors.
 
I heard both boys and girls DA will mimic each other next year. 5 teams per side. U14, U15, U 16, U17 and U 18/19 combo.
 
Damn you! Back to 3 days a week practice for my kid. I'll kidding aside, I don't think the headline is reflective of the actual study. Repetitive twisting jump landings is not "overuse", its "overabuse" of the knee. Plus the study doesn't even remotely come close to replicating real world conditions. Reducing risky load cycles is different the general overuse.

I'm about 99% confident that my complete ACL tear was not caused by a one-time event, but an accumulation of tears. I can guarantee you that overuse was not one of my risk factors.

That the basis of the overuse-specialization problem. Kids are not taking time off between physical activities/sports, practicing too many hours, and cause little tiny tears and micro-fractures that eventually end in a catastrophic failure.
 
Though costly, it would seem helpful for all players, girls especially, to have a baseline MRI done on both knees 1x/year. Colleges and pro teams could afford to do it.
 
Though costly, it would seem helpful for all players, girls especially, to have a baseline MRI done on both knees 1x/year. Colleges and pro teams could afford to do it.
Yes, but only after you've exhausted your family deductible :)
 
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