Hey coaches—there’s a hard truth a lot of us don’t want to face: if you’re coaching female athletes and skipping consistent ACL-prevention exercises, you’re being a Wankah. (See this Ted Lasso clip if you’re unfamiliar with the term.)
ACL tears are everywhere in girls’ and women’s sports. It’s the injury I hear about most from players eyeing college ball and from their coaches who call it “unlucky” when a player goes down with one of those heartbreaking (and often preventable) injuries. High school and college females are super vulnerable, and stats show female high school athletes currently have a 1-in-6 shot at an ACL rupture during their years on the field/court.
But it doesn’t have to be like that.
The Scream That Changed Everything for Me
Picture this: my third year heading up the Reynolds High School Girls’ Soccer team, and bam—my best player ruptures her ACL in one of our first league matches. Her knee just buckles and pops on a hard cut, no contact. She’s down screaming on the turf, and it’s one of the worst moments I’ve had as a coach.
It wrecked me because I’d had ACL surgery myself—I knew the nasty surgery and tough rehab year ahead. And honestly? I also knew I hadn’t switched up my warm-ups from my previous boys’ teams to protect against this. She had legit college potential, but poof—that was her last competitive game.
I vowed then to better protect my female athletes. Nation-wide, these injuries were too common for “bad luck.”
Seven Years as Women’s Head Coach: Zero Knee Surgeries
Fast-forward: seven years coaching high school or college women’s teams, over 200 athletes. Guess what? Zero ligament tears that needed surgery (a couple of strains, sure, but nothing major).
Some luck? Yeah, definitely. But mostly it’s the ACL-prevention routine I put together with some awesome physical therapists (thanks, Paul!) and then modified over the years to keep the players happy with it. Twice a week, our 15-minute warm-up focuses on solid landing and cutting, hip and core strength, balance, and deceleration. No extra time taken out of practice, just a different warm-up twice a week.
If you don’t like my ACL Armor program (linked below), other free programs like FIFA 11+ will work fine as a starting point. And yes, boys’ and men’s soccer coaches should do similar warm-ups too. The injury reduction may be smaller in the male game, but the strengthening and prevention benefits are real!
Why Aren’t More Coaches Doing This?
I’ve asked around, and here are the most common responses:
- “Too much time.”
Come on—15 minutes, twice a week? That’s all it takes to make a huge difference. - “Players complain.”
Yup, at first—it’s no picnic. But sell it as “get stronger, stay safe,” and the whining stops quick. - “Hard to learn and teach.”
Like dialing in your press? If you can teach tactics, this is a piece of cake. - “I coach females like my male teams.”
So you ignore females’ unique physiology and mental wiring? Time for a rethink. (Or maybe go back to just coaching boys.) - “I didn’t know it worked this well.”
Fair! But now you do—the research is solid that these programs can reduce ACL injuries in females by 50-70%!
Owning Our Responsibility
If you coach female athletes, you can meaningfully change the odds of whether a teenager blows out her knee and loses a season (or career) in the sport she loves.
That’s why this “Wankah Award” goes to all coaches who skip ACL-prevention exercises for their female teams. We can’t stop every twist, but we can modify our warm-ups for proven injury prevention and hear far fewer of those awful, season-ending screams.
See my ACL Armor Warm-Up Here.
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