Customer Reviews

Warrior Girls: Protecting Our Daughters Against the Injury Epidemic in Women's Sports

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Girls are suffering ACL injuries (which can take as much as year to recover from) at an alarming rate in soccer games and similar sports. Sokolove reviews the evidene about these injuries and suggests valuable training reforms that might spare these girls from such devastating injuries. This is a "must read" for any dad or mom whose teenage daughter is in competitive soccer, basketball, lacrosse, or similar sport.

This book will help you protect your daughter from over zealous coaches. It's an incredibly interesting story. It's wonderful that girls are able to participate in sports like never before. It's not wonderful when they're on the sidelines in crutches.

This book will show you how to prevent your daughter from becoming an injury statistic. It will empower parents who are not familiar with the modern sports culture to protect their children. You'll learn how to recognize when your child is doing too much and a coach is demanding too much.

It's a wonderful story and very interesting to read.

My daughter recently tore her ACL playing soccer at the club level. She was a freshman in HS, at the time. I wish I had come across this book before that fateful day and not a month after.

Warrior Girls is well-written, well thought out, and well-researched. The first chapters are grim with cautionary tales of promising female athletes who were forced to give up their dream of a career in sports because of serial injuries. Fortunately, as the book progresses, the author passes on information about research that is being conducted and prevention programs that are being adopted for the prevention of these serious, debilitating, and purposely ignored injuries to our teen-aged daughters!

My daughter's surgeon told us it is very unlikely that she will tear her ACL again. However, after reading this book, I've learned that my daughter my have a pre-disposition to knee injuries and without some sort of training and prevention program, she may likely do it again! More parents and coaches should be aware of the terrible risks to our daughters' health and sports careers and insist that schools and clubs institute an injury prevention program.

A must-read for parents, coaches and club-directors!

Unfortunately, the book is mostly comprised of anecdotal stories and interviews which the author uses to convince us that there is a problem with ACL injuries in women's athletics. There are about three pages in the end that suggest solutions to this problem. The author himself seems conflicted as to whether the problem is truly over-participation in a single sport or just a factor of the number of "exposures" a female has to any sport that causes them to changes directions quickly or land on their heels. I was hoping for specific help in what I can do as a coach to help my U11 soccer team avoid ACL injuries. A full chapter on specific preventative training methods and exercises would have made this book complete. But I appreciate his efforts at calling attention to the problem.

Girls/women wreck their knees EIGHT TIMES as often as boys/men in team sports.
Are you stunned by that? I am. DOnt let your daughters become athletic has beens by 18 and candidates for knee replacements because of poorly designed and monitored training. This book shows what is an overwhelming need for girls and women to train smarter, rather than tougher, (what else is new?? :-) to avoid the incredible injury rates they incur in sports and military training. No matter what anyone fears about women "measuring up" to males, we all "know" females are built differently from males and deserve to be trained in ways that they can continue to achieve their personal best.

The author refers to a program from the Santa MOnica Orthopaedics clinic that appears to be reducing injury rates by improving balance and running mechanics for females. [...]



check this out with whoever coaches your kids.

I have four daughters, all who play soccer and basketball. To top it off, I had an ACL replacement almost 20 years ago. So I read this book with high expectations.

It's not that it's a bad book - just not very helpful. Most people already know that ACL injuries for girls is a big problem. Sokolove simply wrote a book with some ancedotal stories of girls with chronic injuries. The first couple were marginally interesting; but it quickly bogged down to just another story of an injuried girl. He could have found many girls/women who had ACL replacements and went on to successful high level play.

If you're expecting any guidance as to either preventing ACL injuries or good insight as to where the research is headed, you'll be disappointed. Sokolove presents a few people doing research; but each one is wedded to conflicting theories as to why girls suffer so many ACL injuries. You come away with no better idea as to the reason for the problem or how to prevent it.

I originally purchased this book after reading a blog exchange between the Author and a Senior person at the Tucker Institute at the University of Minnesota in which I felt that Tucker was very dismissive of Sokolove's work in general and his conclusions in particular. That didn't make sense to me which I why I read the book.

From my perspective Sokolove was very "Title IX" friendly in his approach to his research. In spite of the startling data presented, here we are in 2010 and I can't see that it has been effectively validated or dealt with by the substantial government and university funded women's sports establishment. It appears to me that those in power are concerned that if this information became commonly known there would be a backlash against Title IX. Seems they have some explaining to do.

It's one thing to expand sports participation opportunities for girls via Title IX, but frankly if an issue this basic has not been effectively dealt with over the past three decades it makes one wonder if the right people are in charge from a directional standpoint.

Torn ACLs and concussions are very serious injuries at any age and the earlier in life they occur the higher the potential for negative quality of life issues for these women down the road.

Heard the author on Dr. Oz's radio show and purchased the book, as a result. Overall, the book was an interesting read, but it was often redundant. The title suggests that a wide range of sports would be covered, but the author primarily discusses soccer and basketball. As the parent of a competitive figure skater, I have noticed injury "epidemics" in this sport, as well (although they are different types of injuries than those that occur in soccer or basketball). So, it would have been more interesting if the author had been able to expand his research into other types of sports. Nevertheless, the book "opened my eyes" to the broader issue of the relationship between how our female (and male) athletes are being trained and the injuries we are seeing. It was a good "first step", and I will continue to research the subject matter further.

Our daughter tore her right ACL during summer basketball before her 8th grade year. She was overtired and hindsight tells me that she shouldn't have been playing. She did reconstruction and got back to the court for the spring AAU season in 6 months, playing at full speed again at 9 months. All the coaches, and we as parents, and my daughter herself knew there was a risk of maybe doing it again, but everyone was supposed to be "working on strength" with her. To no avail. At first day of tryouts of her freshman in high school year, she has torn the left ACL and is going through all this again. I wish I had read this book BEFORE now. I think the proactive approach to girls and training is fairly non-existent. It's time that schools and youth sports programs put some effort into strength and movement training, especially with young girls, instead of focusing on winning. This book is a good resource for starting an awareness campaign. Until it happened to mine the first time, I hadn't realized how prevalent ACL tears in girls are. I think people who are doing youth sports should read this book. I'm going to buy some copies for our school and athletic department.

A very insightful look into the disproportionate injuries suffered by female athletes. ACL injuries for female athletes occur at rates as high as 8 to 1 versus their male counterparts. Everyone seems far more concerned with being labeled as chauvinistic rather than facing the truths that male and female anatomies differ in their strengths and weaknesses. Because female legs are not as sturdy for athletics requiring planting and turning hard (like soccer, basketball, and volleyball) doesn't devalue women, it only points out a need to do intense biomechanical studies to reduce the risks and protect our daughters from painful injuries and a lifetime of pain and discomfort in adulthood. It's a good read. I'm glad I bought it.