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ACL Injuries on the Rise Among Teen Girl Athletes

A recent study revealed that there are an alarming amount of girl teen athletes that are suffering from ACL knee injuries according to a recent article in the news. 

An ACL knee injury (also known as Anterior Cruciate Ligament injury) is severe because it is one of the four ligaments that help stabalize knee movement.  The knee's ACL is the ligament that links the femur to the tibia.  Many sports players no matter what age are at risk for an ACL knee injury but a recent study revealed that in female children and teens under the age of 19 are 8 times more likely to suffer from an ACL injury than males are.  This results in an alarming amount injuries among teen girls which totals to over 30,000 injuries in teen girls under the age of 19 ever year!

According to studies the reason that the number of girls injured compared to the number of boys injured is so high is because during the teen years a girl's body is developing fat where a boy's body is developing muscle.  This is just the natural way that teenager's bodies work due to the different hormones - estrogen and testosterone - are being produced.  Girls involved in sports see a risk of increase in this sport related injury because of their ligaments relaxing more due to the increased storage of fat in their body. 

Here are some exercises for strenthening your ACL so that you can help prevent injury it:

• Walking lunges (how do you do walking lunges?)
  
• Toe raises (how do you do toe raises?)
  
• Leg lifts (how do you do leg lifts?)
  
• Stability ball squats (how do you do stability ball squats?)
  
• and any other exercise that helps with your quads and hips will help with the stability of your knees.

Although sometimes ACL injuries occur just from playing sports there are some instances where the ACL can become torn due to a preventable circumstance.  If you or a family member has suffered an ACL injury because of the negligence of another person you should get the advice of a personal injury attorney.  A personal injury attorney will be able to go over your case with you and let you know whether or not you are able to start an injury lawsuit against the negligent party and how much your ACL injury is worth.