WESTHAMPTON — When three players on the girls soccer team at Easthampton High School tore knee ligaments during the fall 2015 season, physical therapists Erin Menard and Jonathan Banz said they felt spurred to action.
They say the local outbreak of youth anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries mirrors a national spike. To address the issue, they and their colleagues from Cooley Dickinson Hospital are teaching area coaches and athletes a 20-exercise warmup program targeting injury minimization.
Tears to the ACL, Menard said, can be devastating to both the player and the team.
“Those injuries are pretty catastrophic and oftentimes athletes can’t get back onto the field at the same playing level they used to,” she said.
Menard said the therapists began by training coaches and students at Easthampton in the spring, and for the fall season, Banz and Menard have enlisted more of the hospital’s physical therapists to extend the service to athletes at Hampshire Regional High School in Westhampton.
“Our goal is to keep coming back until it’s second nature and everyone’s on board,” Menard said of the service, which is provided for free. “It goes to show Cooley is dedicated to making a difference in their local communities.”
The physical therapists are teaching a program put out by the Cincinnati SportsMedicine Research and Education Foundation, from which Menard said she has a certification. The program emphasizes building muscle around weak areas, core muscles and good posture.
During one training session on Thursday, Banz began with some step-stretches and then transitioned into a plyometric series. As the athletes executed the varying jumping motions, Banz corrected poor positioning that he said could lead to injuries.
As a group of girls leapt from a squat-like position, Banz emphasized the landing.
“We need to land soft,” he stressed after several girls jumped and landed with a thud. “That’s where our control comes from — use your muscles to protect yourself.”
In lunges and squat motions, the therapists continually reminded the players, knees should never travel past the toes. No poor posture went unseen during the exerise.
“See that foot?” Menard asked one athlete. “It wobbles in — that’s what you’ve got to watch out for.”
The routine makes sense, said John Plourd, Hampshire Regional athletic director, because the athletes are strengthening and stretching simultaneously during one packed 20-minute period.
“You’re strengthening all the muscles that tend to get injured,” he said.
Because experts have speculated that the national uptick in youth injuries stems from students focused on one specialized sport, coaches and therapists agreed posture is key.
“If you’re not doing something properly, then all year round you’re weakening the same area,” Plourd said.
Girls basketball coach Dan Labrie, watching from the sidelines, said the program is more focused on technique than the routine they’d been doing previously. Labrie said the girls’ old warmup included four or five exercises, but he said the one the therapists are teaching hits many more areas.
“It’s a great concept,” he said. “I wish I were doing this for the past 40 years.”
Amanda Drane can be contacted at adrane@gazettenet.com.