Girls, can you touch your toes?

Many school and sporting associations have kicked off again after a break over the summer, and while not all seasons are in full swing yet, movement assessment of female athletes pre-season should be a priority after summer break.

Coaches and parents may have noticed that some of their female athletes have grown several inches over the summer. Typically females aged eight to 12 are growing rapidly and somehow need to figure out how to coordinate longer limbs, extra height and weight once returning to sport in the fall.

Movement assessment, unfortunately, is typically not done in any tryout or evaluation process in youth sports. After a growth spurt, the simplest test to have your female athletes do is a toe touch.

Besides some finer details that would maybe be noticed by a trained professional eye, the obvious indicator here is: can she touch her toes, or not? Female athletes who cannot touch their toes have a significantly higher chance of sustaining an injury, especially what we would call an overuse injury. Often they may need to seek help from a professional for knee or low back pain once the pain becomes chronic and is affecting their ability to play.

Female athletes have a higher incidence of low back and knee injuries than male athletes. This is partly due to anatomical structure of the hips, which influence mechanics at the knee. A large number of female athletes are quad dominant, meaning that they overuse their quadriceps muscles, often to make up for lack of coordination at their hips and core, which is a movement based problem that may have started after a growth spurt. Jumper's knee, or even just general knee pain, in a female athlete is an indicator of a mechanical dysfunction that should be assessed by a movement specialist who can give rehabilitative exercise to correct the problem, decrease pain, and decrease the chance of injury during the season.

Although movement assessment for a female athlete should be completed by a professional (physiotherapist, kinesiologist, chiropractor), one way to see if your female athlete is at risk for injury is to get them to touch their toes from a standing position, while keeping their legs straight. If they cannot do a simple toe touch, see a health care professional with the tools to correct movement dysfunction to help keep your female athletes in the game.

Dr. Chloe Aman, MS, DC is a chiropractor at The Ridge Spine and Sport Centre and is a member of the Females in Action Moving and Empowering (FAME) committee. She can be reached at (403) 952-8402 or by email at drchloedc@gmail.com.