How a lack of research into female sports medicine is causing women to suffer more injuries than male athletes

Women are increasingly taking center stage in the world of sport, breaking records and inspiring generations. But beneath the spotlight, a troubling inequality is emerging.

While female athletes prove their athletic prowess, they also suffer disproportionately from injuries.

Treatment and research for sports injuries in women often lags behind that of male sports injuries. Experts say it’s time to ask why.

According to The Gist, Less than 35 percent of participants in exercise medicine research are women. In sports performance research, women make up only 3 to 6 percent of participants in the research.

Lack of research into female sports medicine is causing women to suffer more injuries than men

Treatment and research into sports injuries in women lags behind that of men

The majority of training and injury prevention protocols are based on studies conducted only with men, leaving doctors with no choice but to advise women just as they do their male counterparts.

In recent years, more and more research has been done into the differences in injuries between men and women.

In such a study, Research has shown that women and girls are 50 percent more likely to sustain a concussion than men and boys in comparable sports, yet all head injury protocols are specifically geared toward the male body.

In another study, Research has shown that women are twice as likely to suffer a stress fracture from running. However, all treatment plans are focused on the male skeletal structure and male stress fractures.

The knock-on effects of a lack of research even trickle down to the gear women are required to use. Competitive cycling gear is rarely – if ever – made with the female body in mind.

A study of the anatomy of female cyclists found that 64 percent of women in this sport experience persistent pain and discomfort from using the bicycle saddle.

According to professional cyclist Hannah Dines, These lasting effects have left women experiencing numbness in the genital region and in extreme cases labiaplasty is necessary to repair the damaged genitals.

One of the most common reasons women are not included in these studies is menstrual cycles.

Juliana Antero, a former sportswoman and epidemiological researcher at the Institut national du sport de l’expertise et de la performance, believes that new studies are needed for women in sport.

‘Some scientists justify this absence by pointing to the influence that the menstrual cycle can have on women’s scientific results and achievements,’ she said.

‘But that’s exactly why these studies are needed! If we want to optimize women’s athletic results, we need to know more about the impact of female physiology on their performance.’

Menstruation has long been a cause of exclusion for women in sports. Before her historic run in the Boston Marathon in 1967, Kathrine Switzer and women around the world were “banned” from marathons because the Amateur Athletic Association falsely claimed it caused infertility.

There was even a time when women were not allowed to participate in research for fear that the tests performed on them would harm the unborn child.

Professional cyclist Hannah Dines reveals the kit is designed specifically for men

Female soccer players are also 4 to 6 times more likely than men to suffer a tear

This gender bias has been a trend for years, and according to an American study published by the Esteve Foundation, These distortions lead to frequent misdiagnoses and underdiagnoses in at least 700 pathologies.

Even in the case of a heart attack, the typical symptoms that women should look out for are based on the symptoms of men: pain in the left arm or a pressing pain in the chest.

In addition to the male symptoms, or sometimes instead of them, women also suffer from other complaints, such as nausea, pain between the shoulder blades and abdominal pain.

In the sports world, more women than ever are facing career-altering tears of the anterior cruciate ligament, or ACL. Laura Hunter of Sky Sports reported that over the past 20 years the risk of a tear in women’s football has been four to six times greater than in men’s, resulting in a staggering number of female players dropping out of the competition.

“Women have been treated like little men for a long time. There’s a real lack of research. The whole high-performance environment is built around men – designed by men for men,” Nev Davies, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon, told me.