Joint Laxity and the female footy player

Females are generally seen to be more flexible than their male counterparts. I say ‘seen to’ as it is not necessarily more flexible muscles and fascia that lead to this increased perceived flexibility, but rather joint laxity. That is, often times, this increased range of motion often comes from more give in the joints, rather than the muscle tissue itself.

‘I have found that female athletes are no more flexible than male athletes in similar sports. Our elite women’s ice hockey players suffer from the same tightness in the hips that our men do. Our elite female soccer players are not significantly more flexible than their male counterparts. Athletes develop tightness and inflexibility based on the repetitive patterns of their sports, not on sex.’

Mike Boyle

As a result of hormonal differences, females have higher incidence of joint laxity, which predisposes them to injury of that particular joint, and the surrounding soft tissue. Additionally, stabiliser weakness is something that is seen as a bigger issue in female athletes than their male counterparts (although men are by no means unaffected by this thanks in part to poor and imbalanced training programs.) For this reason, stability of joints – or more specifically training and ensuring stability of joints – must have a premium placed on it when conditioning for footy as a female.

It goes without saying that if you have poor stability around the shoulders, then you are more likely to suffer a shoulder injury. But lack of stability in and around certain joints can also be responsible for not only injury to that particular site, but also to other areas secondary to this instability. A classic example is the pelvis – right at the center of the body and movement in general. If asomeone doesn’t have a high level of hip stability when playing footy – and this is often a problem with female players – then this will also greatly increase the chances of injury lower down the chain at the knees and ankles, not to mention the muscles of the lower body.

‘We have to use exercises that effectively integrate and activate key stabilisers of the muscles of the body, because these are the muscles that maintain the integrity and health of the joints.’

Paul Chek

We have discussed at length in Female Specific Strength & Power Training for Aussie Rules, the importance of using exercises that actively train the key stabilisers in and around a joint, rather than just training the primer movers. It is important to perform exercises where stabilisers and prime movers work together just as they do in movements in footy (like dumbbell pressing and lunges and other functional movements), however with the stability weakness shown up in many female athletes, it is important to also specifically target these all important stabilsers with specific exercises engaging them.

In other words, as a female strength training for footy, the first thing you should do is drop the machine weights training, as you are training strength and building a little size, but with absolutely no stability to go with this strength. This is a recipe for disaster (injury) not so much immediately from the training, but later when playing, as a result of the training.

Instead your focus should be on training key stabilisers, particularly hip stabilisers as so many other issues lower down the chain stem from the hips. Specifically targeting key stabilisers with particular stability exercises, followed by integrating this stability into functional movement patterns with strength and power exercises. This way you train the stability into the movement quality – a recipe for success.

For more information, we cover this stability in great detail in the female-specific strength and power training for footy program, and show how to isolate certain areas of stability and then integrate them with certain exercises, as well as then how to lay it all out in a program, depending on your own individual ability or experience level.

Strength Coach