The prevalence of ACL injuries in women's football had led FIFA to fund research into whether hormonal fluctuations during menstrual cycles could be a factor. Female footballers are two to six times more likely than men to suffer an ACL injury and Simon Augustus, senior lecturer in sport biomechanics at Kingston University, is hoping to find out why.
He told BBC Sport: "We want to examine whether athletes may be more predisposed to injuries because of the functional changes in terms of their anatomy and physiology during the menstrual cycle. We know hormones fluctuate during different phases of the cycle but we don't yet know how much of an influence that may have on the risk of injury.
"We know some injuries are unavoidable, but we're attempting to help those individuals who injure their ACL outside of impact actions. Those are the ones where we might have more chance to intervene and prevent them from taking place by utilising strength training or tweaking technique. There are so many different factors involved with ACL injuries. We are starting to research this from an individual approach and look at an athlete's whole profile and putting protocols in place to reduce risk."