Young Female Athletes & ACL Recovery By Monica Walker
Student Athlete Profile: Patti H.
Patti was one of our first scholastic athletes at the ripe old age of fourteen years old. She trained with us in early 2002, prior to her competitive season. She participated in basketball, softball, and volleyball.
She came to us to help improve her speed but found out quickly that she needed to strengthen her right knee, which had a partial tear in the anterior crushier ligament. During her first four and half weeks of training Patti showed significant improvement in her overall strength, flexibility, and mobility. Unfortunately, early that spring Patti completely tore the ACL and went through her surgery and physical therapy for the next six months.
Once she received clearance from her physician, Patti came back and started her training in hopes to be ready for her spring sport. Everyone agreed that the first priority was to improve her strength levels significantly and then make a plan to re-introduce proper running/sprinting.
She had great improvement over a six week period improving her front squat from bodyweight to bodyweight plus 125 lbs and single leg curls from 10 lbs to 55 lbs. She had less than 50% lower abdominal function and improved to over 90% function. In addition, her hamstring flexibility improved from 55% to almost 100%.
Her favorite part of training was boxing and least favorite was any running! The staff admits, she remqains one of their sentimental favorites and an outstanding student to coach.
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