Depending on which study you read, female athletes may be 3-11 times more likely that male athletes to suffer an ACL injury from sports. This is particularly in soccer, volleyball, and basketball. It’s unclear if this type of injury has a potential of impacting a female athlete’s professional career in a sport like the WNBA. McCarthy et al, in the April issue of the American Journal of Sports Medicine, have a fascinating study looking at Women’s National Basketball Association players. In this study, they track female athletes attending the WNBA combine from 2000-2008. Their purpose was to look at the history of injuries suffered in college (particularly ACL and meniscus) and see if that had an impact on being drafted and on playing career. Of the 506 athletes studied, 59% were ultimately drafted by the WNBA.
There are several interesting pieces of data from this study:
• The positions in women’s professional basketball have similar characteristics as the men’s. By this I’m referring to the fact that guards are the lightest and shortest of the positions, followed by forwards, followed by the centers.
• The number of athletes who have had ACL or meniscus surgery in their college career prior to the combine is very interesting, the table below breaks this down by position:
| Guards | Forwards | Centers | |
| ACL Surgery |
16% |
17% |
9% |
| Meniscus Surgery |
9% |
12% |
11% |
- A sizable percentage of the players who were drafted into the WNBA had either ACL or meniscus surgery. For example, approximately 15% of the players drafted in the first round had ACL surgery, approximately 10% of the players drafted in the first round had meniscus surgery.
- Ankle sprain is the most common injury reported, almost 48% of the athletes having been affected.
- Mean career length for the athletes studied was a little over 3 years, with no difference between those athletes with a history of ACL or meniscus surgery and those without.
Ankle sprains are the most common injury reported in athletes attempting to enter the WNBA. However, a large percentage of athletes entering the WNBA have had ACL and/or meniscus surgery. Both of these have implications for strength and conditioning. Conditioning probably cannot prevent or mitigate contact injuries, but it can prevent injuries from landing. There’s been a focus in recent years on emphasizing the need for hamstring strength, landing mechanics, and “prehab” ankle exercises for helping to prevent these types of injuries in basketball players. This study does a great job of reinforcing the need for this focus on a basketball strength and conditioning program.
McCarthy, M.M., Voos, J.E., Nguyen, J.T., Callahan, L., and Hannafin, J.A. (2013). Injury profile in elite female basketball athletes at the Women’s National Basketball Association combine. The American Journal of Sports Medicine, 41(3), 645-651.