A groundbreaking FIFA-funded study at Kingston University will investigate whether hormonal fluctuations during menstrual cycles could be contributing to an alarming rise in career-threatening knee injuries in women\u2019s soccer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The research comes after players including Arsenal\u2019s Beth Mead, Manchester City\u2019s Vivianne Miedema and Chelsea\u2019s Sam Kerr have all suffered serious injuries of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), which runs diagonally in the middle of the knee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kerr, who is Australian, has been out for 15 months with a ruptured ACL.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Led by PhD student Blake Rivers alongside a team of sports science experts, the year-long study at Kingston near London will analyse blood samples from elite and grassroots footballers to track hormone concentrations through their menstrual cycles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe want to examine whether athletes may be more predisposed to injuries because of the functional changes in terms of their anatomy and physiology during the menstrual cycle,\u201d Simon Augustus, Senior Lecturer in Sport Biomechanics, said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe know hormones fluctuate during different phases of the cycle but we don\u2019t yet know how much of an influence that may have on the risk of injury.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The research team will specifically monitor oestrogen and progesterone levels \u2014 hormones previously linked to increased ligament laxity and decreased neuromuscular reaction times \u2014 while cross-referencing against physical performance data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Beginning in June, the study will recruit footballers from London clubs including Chelsea and Fulham for regular campus visits for blood and physical performance testing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Researchers will also analyse common ACL injury scenarios, including landing mechanics after heading the ball and rapid directional changes, to identify potential correlations with hormonal states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe know some injuries are unavoidable, but we\u2019re attempting to help those individuals who injure their ACL outside of impact actions \u2014 those are the ones where we might have more chance to intervene and prevent them from taking place by utilising strength training or tweaking technique,\u201d Augustus said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere are so many different factors involved with ACL injuries. We are starting to research this from an individual approach and look at an athlete\u2019s whole profile and putting protocols in place to reduce risk.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The findings could allow coaches to modify training loads or individual programmes based on menstrual cycle phases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A groundbreaking FIFA-funded study at Kingston University will investigate whether hormonal fluctuations during menstrual cycles could be contributing to an alarming rise in career-threatening knee injuries in women\u2019s soccer. The research comes after players including Arsenal\u2019s Beth Mead, Manchester City\u2019s Vivianne Miedema and Chelsea\u2019s Sam Kerr have all suffered serious injuries of the anterior cruciate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4858,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","inline_featured_image":false,"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_3859443944190656_798604363342440":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4857"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4859,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4857\/revisions\/4859"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}