One of our girls is attending Children's Hospital Sports Med. Dept and working with Jensen Brent and he has allowed me to observe and ask questions and has provided me with some handouts.
I am not a trainer so I am only passing on what I have read for myself:
From John Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore Maryland 2009
"Sports such as gymnastics and baseball,which involve repetitive impact and torque, provide a greater risk of epiphyseal injury."
Epiphyseal injuries are injuries that occur at the epiphyseal plate or growth plate of children and adolescents. They commonly occur near the major joints of the limbs, especially the knee, ankle, elbow and wrist.
"Similar to rare epiphyseal injuries, soft tissue injuries to the lower back are usually the result of poor technique, too much weight, or ballistic lifts. Most serious injuries to the lower back occur while using free weights."
"Furthermore, strength training combined with plyometric exercises may reduce the incidence of sports related ACL injuries in adolescent girls."
"Strength training at a young age can be beneficial, but it is not a panacea for sports related injuries."
I would encourage anyone to visit this site I have attached to see what the PEP program is about. Go to
www.aclprevent.com/pepprogram.htm
If that link does not work Google pep acl.
When I started to understand the anatomical differences in how the female balances, the Q angle, the notch that the ACL passes through is smaller or narrower in a female than male, the wider hips, the imbalance of the hamstring to quad and most importantly why the glutes do not fire the knee like it does in the male, then I finally understood if a girl hits ugly they throw over hand ugly! They have ankle problems, hamstring issues, quads and lower back pain etc. They do not shift their weight correctly for the most part and their bodies are not balanced as to strength as to left and right. This is why their shoulder, arms and elbow hurts in females because they do not transfer the weight correctly and they do not use their legs and they are all upper body! It is also why most girls who do this cannot hit to the opposite field as well because the front side fly's open.
It stems from not flexing or bending the knee as they must be taught how to do it verses a male. When we jump our glutes fire and the knee flexes automatically and theirs does not upon landing however they can be taught how to do it and they will throw harder and hit better in my opinion.
A simple test is to have them just jump up in the air and listen to how loud they land. Then have them bend at the waist and soften the knees and repeat and usually they will land on the balls of their feet verses flat footed. Our parents who have boys and girls claim they know when their son comes down the stairs verses the daughters as they claim the daughters sound like an elephant because they do not flex the knees.
Get with a qualified trainer is the bottom line.
