Might Gendering Ski Binding Settings be Helpful for the Prevention of ACL Injuries Among Female Recreational Alpine Skiers?

Markus Posch; Gerhard Ruedl; Katja Tecklenburg; Martin Burtscher

doi:10.1186/s40798-022-00415-0

Might Gendering Ski Binding Settings be Helpful for the Prevention of ACL Injuries Among Female Recreational Alpine Skiers?

Sports Med Open. 2022 Feb 5;8(1):21. doi: 10.1186/s40798-022-00415-0.

Authors

Markus Posch¹, Gerhard Ruedl², Katja Tecklenburg³, Martin Burtscher²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Sport Science, University of Innsbruck, Fürstenweg 185, 6020, Innsbruck, Austria. Markus.Posch@uibk.ac.at.
² Department of Sport Science, University of Innsbruck, Fürstenweg 185, 6020, Innsbruck, Austria.
³ medalp sportclinic, 6460, Imst, Austria.

Abstract

When interpreting sex differences in the injury risk during sport activities, potential gender effects are often overlooked. This might actually be the case with regard to the higher injury risk of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in female skiers. A higher failure rate of ski binding releases has been suggested at least partly to explain the more frequent ACL injuries in female skiers. However, as males seem to be predominantly responsible for the development of standards for ski binding settings, one might speculate that they could rather make standards for males than females. If true, the inclusion of female engineers could actually represent an appropriate approach to reduce ACL injures in female recreational skiers.

Keywords: Alpine skiing; Gender; Knee injuries; Sex; Ski binding.