One study on women basketball players says that on a typical team, two of the players will tear their anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) during their college careers. In terms of knee problems, then, this year's women's basketball team can't escape being average.
Both senior co-captain forward Jayme Busnengo and junior guard Sarah Conlon have missed a season of their college careers due to ACL injuries. That's where assistant trainer Pat Cordeiro comes in. Cordeiro, in her first year at Tufts, installed a six-week program prior to the season specifically designed to work on this problem.
The program, which Cordeiro originally borrowed from an online program before adding other aspects, is designed to prevent injuries that frequently cost women a year or more of their basketball lives.
Cordeiro had her work cut out for her. The statistics differ, but essentially women basketball players are ten times more likely than men to tear an ACL. Additionally, women are 85% more likely to incur the injury in non-contact play. According to the New York Times, one in ten female varsity collegiate athletes suffer a season-ending knee injury every year. Of those, roughly 3,000 of them are due to the ACL.
Staggering statistics like this beg the question: why? What makes women so much more susceptible to men playing the same game? Unfortunately, there aren't clear answers. There have been a plethora of studies conducted on the issue, but no single reason has been identified.
"There are so many factors," Cordeiro said. "It could be structural, hormonal, strength, or when women start playing sports. A lot of research now, though, is saying that it happens a lot when the players jump and land."
According to Cordeiro, a majority of women have a tendency to turn their knees inwards, so that they point at each other. In what is called a position of no return, the feet are flat on the ground at the same time that the knees are facing each other.
Getting a number of the players out of this jumping pattern was the major goal of the program, and though it's early, it appears to be successful.
"I don't even think about it," Busnengo said. "I saw the videotape, and I was jumping differently, and I hope now that the change is just something that has happened."
The program was preventative in nature, so complete success can't be determined for a while - at least not until a rigorous season has passed without injury. Cordeiro's program, though, has proven beneficial in a number of regards.
First, the vast majority of team members increased their verticals, on average by about two inches. In addition, players are now more confident that they can perform injury free. Almost every player on the team knows a few people who have sustained an ACL injury, so it wears on all their minds. But for someone like Busnengo, who has suffered an ACL tear in the past, confidence is almost as essential to her performance as dribbling or shooting.
Like many, Busnengo suffered her injury - which forced her to miss her freshman season - in a non-contact play. She was driving on a fast break and about to pass to the wing when she was forced to pass to the other side. That slight twist of the knee was all it took.
"I try to keep the injury out of my mind," she said. "It's all in your head. You have to have confidence in your body and your knee to perform. The program helped with that. It's another reassurance for me, like wearing a brace."
Cordeiro used an online program - Sportsmetrics, developed by the Cincinnati Sportsmedicine Research and Education Foundation - and mixed in additional elements. Sportsmetrics is a program based on low-level plyometrics, or basic jumping exercises. Once Cordeiro was able to alter the way her players jumped, she could progress to more advanced activities.
In addition to the jumping, Cordeiro focused on balance. The players would balance on foam rollers with one or both feet while working on ball skills at the same time. The third element to her program is strength conditioning, though the team already has a strength regiment.
It might not sound like fun work, but Cordeiro seems to have made it enjoyable for the team.
"It was actually fun," Busnengo said. "We did a lot of silly things. A lot of it was kind of like hopscotch."
Despite the work, Cordeiro still noticed that the poor jumping habits aren't completely eliminated.
"I could still see the difference in their good and bad extremities," she said.
Cordeiro is no stranger to this type of program. Though she wasn't hired specifically for the ACL problem, the ability to establish this program designed for women made Tufts more desirable to the trainer. In the past two years, while getting her masters at the Arizona School of Health Sciences, she was performing a similar program with high school basketball players and with the Phoenix Mercury, a WNBA team.
For the players, having someone initiate the program was a blessing. Prior to "Pat's program," as it came to be known, the women only did speed school in preparation for the season. Though speed school has changed slightly this year under the leadership of Fitness Center Director Mike Pimentel, in the past, it was directed more towards football players. And while both Cordeiro and the players appreciate the value of speed school towards cardiovascular training, the team welcomed a change.
"It's nice to have someone here who cares enough about women's sports to initiate a program for us," Busnengo said.
If the women's basketball team has the successful season many are predicting, it can only be with a full roster. And if the Jumbos make it through the season without a knee injury, it will be due at least partly to "Pat's program."
