Heal Like a Girl

from Savannah Magazine March/April 2022

by Savannah Magazine

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Heal Like a Girl

Amid a rise in sports injuries to young women, one athlete’s road to recovery

Written by JESSICA LYNN CURTIS

FROM LEFT: Valentina Garcia, Dr. Trey Ochsner, Claudia Zyskowski

RUN LIKE A GIRL. Throw like a girl. Fight like a girl. In the last few years, we’ve seen phrases like these become a rally cry of sorts — in marketing campaigns, on T-shirts, in songs — as part of a cultural shift where fi erce, young female athletes are beginning to get the recognition they deserve.

One of these young women is Savannah College of Art and Design student Valentina Garcia. When you enter a conversation with the 21-year-old industrial design major from Bogota, Colombia, you’re drawn to her warm demeanor, openness and poise. Five minutes into the conversation, you realize she is also tough, smart, witty and a confi dent competitor with no quit in her — she helped take SCAD’s cross-country team to the NAIA National Cross Country Championship this past fall, despite fi ghting through a stress fracture.

Unfortunately, she’s not alone. The number of young women and girls with athletic injuries is on the rise. This is partially due to the growing popularity of cutting sports (sports with a lot of running side-to-side and pivots) like lacrosse and fl ag football. But girls are also getting hurt more frequently than boys who play the same sports. This has led to a wave of research and prevention — because “tear your ACL like a girl” is not a rally anyone wants to join.

Garcia suff ered from a grade three posterior medial tibial stress syndrome, to be exact. She fi rst experienced what she describes as a pain “like the bone being compressed” in her shin in May 2021, just after her outdoor track and fi eld season had ended.

“I’d had a great season and a great time running,” she shares. “It was my fi rst outdoor season, so it was all new energy. I decided to do another 5K because, ‘Why not?’ And that day was when I noticed [my shin] was really hurting.” She tried to convince herself it was nothing, but when the pain persisted, Garcia visited her trainers.

Claudia Zyskowski is the head athletic trainer at SCAD. She and her staff are the fi rst line of defense for injured athletes. “We try to fi gure out what’s going on with them, and then we either refer them out for more care with a physician, or we do in-house treatments here, along with things like limiting their practice time and what they’re allowed to do at practice,” she says. “Valentina took a break from running, but once she started again, she was back to that pain. We put her in a walking boot to see if that would help calm it down, and it didn’t.” So, they sent her to see Dr. Trey Ochsner of Chatham Orthopaedic Associates.

“We started with X-rays and chatting about her history — how many miles per week she was running, which is an important part of assessing a runner,” Ochsner explains. “You ask if they’re wearing new shoes, if they’ve increased their training regimen, things that would indicate a change in the normal. Then the next step is usually to get an MRI because you can see swelling within the bone itself.”

The level of pain and its frequency dictates a patient’s treatment plan. It can be a balancing act between taking the time to let the bone heal (sometimes with the assistance of a walking boot) and getting back to running at a competitive level.

“Valentina’s treatment plan has been a team eff ort between Valentina and Claudia and our physical therapy staff here,” Ochsner says. He prescribed anti-infl ammatories and custom orthotics, and Garcia was completely shut down from running for several weeks. When she eased into it again, she began with an anti-gravity treadmill. Garcia also began cross training, which means training in sports other than an athlete’s primary one. “As an athlete, you never want to lose the fi tness you’ve achieved,” she says. “So, I bought my fi rst bike and started biking around Savannah and swimming.”

Dr. Ochsner also recommends vitamin D and calcium supplements for female athletes like Garcia. “There’s plenty of literature to show that women of all ages tend to be lower in vitamin D and calcium [than men],” Ochsner says, noting that vitamin D defi ciencies can increase risk for stress fractures.

Concussions and ACL tears are two other types of injuries that are more prevalent in women and girls — in fact, female athletes are 4.5 times more likely to tear their ACL than a male, Ochsner says. Several factors are at play: neuromuscular control, anatomic differences (“the notch of the femur where the ACL rests is narrower in women, and that puts them at an increased risk,” he explains). Women and girls are generally more fl exible and have hypermobility in their joints, which also increases risk. “At the muscular level, they have more quad-dominant muscular control (versus hamstrings) and weaker core stability,” Ochsner says. “Beyond that, you have hormonal imbalances — when a woman has her period, her ligaments actually change.”

Much of this, however, can be counteracted through proper training. Zyskowski and her team at SCAD approach these issues and more with injury prevention in mind.

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Valentina Garcia

“We hold thorough physicals at Chatham Orthopaedic at the beginning of the school year, and every athlete who goes through those physicals gets screened for their functional movement and strengths by three separate people,” Zyskowski explains. They’re fi rst screened by one of the athletic trainers, then a physical therapist does a more detailed screening of their movement and, fi nally, a physician goes over any previous injuries they’ve had, any musculoskeletal abnormalities or anything that seems off .

Based on these fi ndings, the athletic trainers create individualized exercise rehab treatment plans for each athlete that needs a little help. “Say someone is having trouble doing single leg squats,” she says. “We’ll put them on a program to help strengthen their quadriceps muscle and their hamstring muscle.” Zyskowski is also a big proponent of cross training to help prevent overuse injuries like Garcia’s.

As for Garcia, not only did she work her way back to being able to compete with the cross-country team this past fall (still limiting her running by cross training on off days), but she also has embraced swimming and biking so much that she competed in her fi rst triathlon.

“There are lots of little accomplishments that I’ve achieved through this time, even though I haven’t reached my peak in running yet due to the injury,” she says. But that’s just a matter of time, she says. “I’m sure I’ll get over this.”

PT Like a Girl

Female athletes seeking physical therapy have several options locally, in addition to Chatham Orthopaedic Associates.

BenchMark Physical Therapy This national chain features four local outposts in Savannah. benchmark.urpt.com

CORA Physical Therapy CORA also has locations throughout Savannah, from downtown to the islands. coraphysicaltherapy.com

Ledesma Sports Medicine Ledesma offers a zero-gravity treadmill, like the one Garcia used to ease back into running. ledesmasportsmed.com

Optim Physical Therapy Optim utilizes a whole-body approach to integrate movement patterns and enhance everyday joint function. optimhealth.com/services/optim-therapy/

SouthCoast Health Physical Therapy SouthCoast offers a spectrum of PT services at locations in Savannah’s Southside and in Pooler. southcoasthealth.com/physicaltherapy

St. Joseph’s/Candler Physical Therapy Physical therapy at SJC means patients can work in tandem with the hospital system’s larger offerings. sjchs.org/a-z-services-list/center-for-rehabilitation/ therapy-services/physical-therapy

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