It has long been speculated that the impacts of a woman's menstrual cycle and injuries in women's football, but nothing has been officially confirmed or can be proven. To date, there has been a lack of high-quality data to demonstrate how and when this occurs. New research published by the Barça Innovation Hub changes the conversation.
The most striking outcome was that, during the study period, there were four ACL injuries, two of which occurred during a player's playing season. An injury that requires months of recovery and significantly increases the overall injury burden.
The researchers are careful to say this does not prove that periods cause serious injuries. The sample size remains small, and causation has not yet been established.
Instead of examining whether players get injured more frequently during their period, the research focuses on the severity of those injuries and their impact.
The rumour that players are more likely to be injured during their periods was debunked. Instead, if they injure themselves during their period, those injuries tend to be far more serious.
Players whose injuries occur during menstruation are likely to miss around three times more football compared to injuries suffered at other points in aplayer'ss cycle.
The study followed 33 elite players from FC Barcelona from the 2019/20 to the 2022/23 season. Because the players were from the same club, the researcher could control key variables, including medical staff, training methods, injury definitions, and match exposure.
The two states they compared in their research were when a player was on their period and when they were not.
Across the four seasons, there were 80 injuries; only a small proportion occurred during a player's menstrual period; however, when this did occur, recovery time was dramatically longer.
Injury rates per 1,000 hours of football were similar regardless of menstrual status.
During menstruation, players lost an average of 684 days per 1,000 hours of exposure. Outside of menstruation, that figure dropped to 206 days.
Put simply, the injuries during periods were not more frequent, but they were much more difficult to recover from.
The research shifts focus from the number of injuries to their severity. For clubs, this matters far more.
The researchers stress that this is not about resting all players during their period. Instead, it is about personalised monitoring.
Tracking cycles individually enables medical and performance staff to adjust training load, recovery, and prevention strategies when players are more vulnerable to severe injury. Relying solely on calendars is insufficient.
The work has informed a best-practice guide developed with UEFA, aimed at standardising the monitoring of menstrual health in elite football.
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