RISE MOTION ATHLETICS CAMPS FOR GIRLS
The days of girls having to fight to find good training opportunities are finally over.
my APPROACH
With women’s football gaining more popularity there has been one specific discussion all over the media. Seeing headlines like “Injury/ACL epidemic in women’s football.” or “Is the female body able to deal with the sport?” is something that’s really bugging me.
Women are not weaker, smaller, more fragile versions of men who can’t handle the demands of the sport – we just need to be given the same training opportunities.
It is way to easy to link the high amount of injuries in the women’s game, compared to men’s, to biomechanical, structural and biological differences, like the menstrual cycle. While these factors definitely need to be considered in training, they are missing the main point. It is completely normal for boys & men to have strength training as a given pillar in their overall training from a young age. For a lot of girls there is still this ideal of being skinny and not gaining too much muscle mass which then leads to not eating enough and therefor being constantly underfueled – which is also a huge factor in injury risk. Tissues like bones, ligaments and tendons are mainly developed at a young age and that development can’t be caught up on in that scale later in life.
Talking to the parents: Your daughter doesn’t need another skill session with a lot of flashy equipment. She needs a solid training framework promoting the development of strength, coordination and speed. That base of qualities will not only inevitably increase her performance but it will give her the best chances of playing for a very long time with as few injuries as possible.
WHY IS that IMPORTANT TO ME?
That little girl in the picture is me. I started playing in the boy’s team and I went to football camps where boys and girls were mixed. While those were very valuable experiences, it is not the same as the dynamics of being in an all girls group – especially during the teenage years. I realized that when I moved up to the girl’s team.
As boys get older it is completely normal for them to start strength training and maybe even follow a structured plan. For girls that is mostly not the case and I think one of the main reasons for that is that they don’t know why they should. It is not visible nor easily accessible for them. The narrative is still “be as skinny as possible, don’t gain too much muscle mass and don’t eat too much.” They desperately need visibility of a better, healthier way.
A camp introducing strength training, including speed, explosiveness and coordination, is the perfect entry point. They’re in the comfort of a group of people with the same conditions and the same capabilities. They will learn solid basics of how to integrate strength training into their existing schedule, what benefits them and – even more importantly – what doesn’t.
It’s just us girls, you’re not outnumbered. It’s a safe place to not only improve athletically but also grow on a personal level. Let me show you the better, healthier way.