Soccer data could help solve ACL crisis in women's game, says software company
ExpandingWritten by Philip O'Connor
(Reuters) – Stephen Smith, CEO of sports software company Kitman Labs, says he wants to help stop the number of serious knee injuries sustained by female soccer players by using the huge amount of energy generated in professional sports. The data will be used, he told Reuters.
The 2023 Women's World Cup in Australia and New Zealand was a huge success, but big names such as Dutch striker Vivian Miedema and English attacker Beth Mead were sidelined with anterior cruciate ligament injuries, and star players I lost some of it. Her ligament (ACL) injury.
Smith's company has partnered with a number of teams and leagues, including New York/NJ Gotham FC, the reigning champions of the National Women's Soccer League, to find solutions to help players avoid such injuries. .
“What we're really excited about is that we're working with some women-based leagues and teams around the world to start collecting data and understanding what that means.” Smith told Reuters.
“(We want to) be able to combine game information with health care information, menstrual cycle information, etc. to better understand cause and effect, so these clubs and leagues can You will be able to learn how to better manage your
Mr Smith, who previously worked as a senior injury rehabilitation and conditioning coach for Leinster Rugby in his native Ireland, said the medical, strength and conditioning and performance departments were all run independently, with vast amounts of data on the players. I realized that although it was being generated, it was not being shared effectively with each other.
“The idea was to take all of this information and put it in one place so teams could have a 360-degree view of the athlete's reality and make better decisions for the situation.Athletes actually needed it,” he explains.
This idea led to the formation of Kitman Labs. Kitman Labs is a platform described by the company's website as “a centralized, advanced operating system that streamlines and automates your workflow and helps you achieve specific performance results.”
“Big opportunity”
Since founding the company in 2012, Smith has moved to California and has worked with a number of high-profile teams, including the England and Ireland Rugby Football Union, English Premier League and NBA club Washington Wizards, and women's soccer clubs such as Gotham. We have partnered with clients.
Smith believes female athletes' wider hips create a different “Q-angle” (the angle of the femur to the knee), which is a key factor in the high rate of knee injuries in women's soccer. states.
“Most ACL injuries occur when you land or when you slow down and try to change direction, typically when the knee bends or rotates. Then a shearing action occurs, and that shearing action “is more accentuated when someone has a wider Q angle,” he says.
“What we do know is that during periods of hormonal change, different hormones release different chemicals that change the structure and elasticity of ligaments, so at different points in a woman's menstrual cycle, ligaments It's about changing things that change you.'' Become more relaxed.
“It's an area that has been ignored so far because people don't want to talk about the menstrual cycle, but the reality is that for women, it has to be addressed. “I think we see this as an opportunity to meet the standard of care provided to female athletes,” he says.
Smith said he doesn't expect a “one-size-fits-all” solution to be found and ultimately needs to treat each athlete as an individual.
“It takes a lot of data to identify these patterns and trends as they emerge, and because no two people are the same, they need to be fine-tuned for everyone. “There will be,” he said. he says.
(Reporting by Philip O'Connor; Editing by Toby Davis)
