Women, knees, bras, oh my!

Since I have new knees, I’m slowing down on following news about knee injuries. But this story was all over my social media newsfeeds. Knee injuries are up to 6 times more common in women – here’s how to reduce your risk

Best comment on the Facebook page where I shared the story: “It’s because we have more knees isn’t it?”

LOL.

Women’s knee injuries are in the news again because several prominent women athletes are struggling with injuries, and also women in sports medicine are writing about it.

From the story that’s linked above, “While there’s no doubt that the shape of our physical frames does make a difference, a paper in the British Journal Of Sports Medicine has argued that societal constructs around gender are also a contributing factor and have been ignored. Dr Stephanie Coen was one of the authors of the paper and is assistant professor of health geography at the University of Nottingham. She tells Strong Women: “I think the reality of the ACL problem is that it’s so multi-layered across time, space and context. The traditional paradigm of ACL injuries in women has been focused on hips and hormones – holding fast to the idea that ‘women are made differently’ and accepting this kind of injury proneness as a biological fact.”  

“She and her co-authors concluded that scientists and sports bodies need to widen their research on the subject. “We need to look further upstream to the gendered kinds of [sports] exposure [people face] from infancy. We need to look at how we learn to move and use our bodies in quite different and often gendered ways,” she explains.  This means looking at whether girls have access to the same sport opportunities – and at a same level as boys – right from primary school. Girls playing football at grassroots levels may not get the same number of fast-paced matches as their male peers, often don’t have access to the same conditioning opportunities or equal levels of coaching. Even once you start playing semi-professionally, you’re probably not going to play on the best pitches.”

But it’s not just our bodies, or gendered sports backgrounds, it might also be ILL FITTING BRAS that are hurting women’s knees.

What’s that you say? BRAS? Really?

One of the blog team commented, “The knee injury may be as a result of someone mentioning you are wearing the wrong bra and “accidentally” kneeing that person.”

See Could your sports bra be causing your knee pain?: “A well-fitting sports bra can be a game-changer in terms of comfort—but could it also impact your joint health? A recent study published in the Journal of Applied Biometrics suggests a supportive bra may actually reduce injuries to the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), which runs through the middle of the knee and helps to stabilize the joint. Women are more prone to ACL tears, a debilitating injury with an extended recovery period, compared to men. While researchers have explored biological factors and training routines as potential contributors, the idea that a supportive sports bra could assist in injury prevention had not been previously considered.”

And Wearing the wrong bra could put you at a greater risk of a knee injury, study suggests: “To work out why the risk is so much greater for females, researchers have looked at biological factors and training routines. But until recently, no-one had considered the role of the bra. An international team of experts in biomechanics and sports medicine decided to take the task on and studied 35 female recreational athletes. They found when women wore highly supportive bras while completing jumping and landing tasks, many of the common risk factors associated with ACL injuries decreased. Knee flexion angles were smaller, which means the knee didn’t have to bend as much on landing, and there was also a reduction in dynamic knee valgus, which is when the knee moves inwards from the foot.”

“Wrong” in this context isn’t that complicated. It just means “less supportive.”