Yoga, traditionally an Eastern discipline of strengthening, stretching and breathing exercises and poses, has been on the rise in the West for some time now. Every city across America has a yoga studio, some with many studios, and some even offering many different styles and levels of yoga workouts.
We know you’ve been trying to bend it like Beckham (too old?). We’ve seen you working on those mad skills, but what we haven’t seen is you caring for your knees. This word might be new to those who like to live on the edge, so let’s define it first: a knee is the part joining your thighs to your legs — it’s the round and fragile medium that looks like the back of Uncle Fester’s neck. Please moisturize.
Injuries are a part of sports. So it’s only fitting that as you train for soccer, you should also train to avoid injuries. Injury prevention for kids is particularly critical as over 1.5 million kids injure their knees and ankles every year. ACL injuries in kids especially are on the rise, with a 400% increase in the last decade.
Kristine Lilly, a midfielder/forward for the USWNT for 23 years, holds the world record for most international appearances made by a man or woman. To give you some perspective on just how incredible the feat of 354 caps is, the male player with the most international appearances (Egypt’s Ahmed Hassan) has 184.
Kristine Lilly played on the national team over 4 different decades. She witnessed the permed and teased hair of the 1980s and the sidebangs of the early 2010s, the peak of the Michael Jackson era, the rise of Taylor Swift and everything in between.
So you’re the kid on the team with a slender, 5-foot-something frame and weight that falls right in the middle of the 50th percentile for your age. You’ve heard the words “scrawny” and “toothpick” tossed around by coaches when discussing your physique. However, as a product of your natural build, you also possess pace, good foot speed and decent technical ability.