An ACL tear or rupture can require surgery and always needs months of physiotherapy to help rebuild the knee’s stability. The ACL is one of four ligaments that holds the three bones of our knee together and its key role is to control the rotational movement of the knee joint. That’s why most injuries happen during multi-directional sports like football, netball and rugby – or, in my case, doing the (unintended) splits on skis.

While there’s no doubt that the shape of our physical frames does make a difference, a paper in the British Journal Of Sports Medicine has argued that societal constructs around gender are also a contributing factor and have been ignored.

Dr Stephanie Coen was one of the authors of the paper and is assistant professor of health geography at the University of Nottingham. She tells Strong Women: “I think the reality of the ACL problem is that it’s so multi-layered across time, space and context. The traditional paradigm of ACL injuries in women has been focused on hips and hormones – holding fast to the idea that ‘women are made differently’ and accepting this kind of injury proneness as a biological fact.”

Knee injuries are up to 6 times more common in women – here’s how to reduce your risk