Feminae: an international multisite innovative project for female athletes

Elliott-Sale, Kirsty J, Ackerman, Kathryn E, Lebrun, Constance M, Minahan, Clare, Sale, Craig ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5816-4169, Stellingwerff, Trent, Swinton, Paul A and C Hackney, Anthony (2023) Feminae: an international multisite innovative project for female athletes. BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine, 9 (4). e001675. ISSN 2055-7647

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Abstract

Sufficient high-quality studies in sport science using women as participants are lacking, meaning that our knowledge and understanding of female athletes in relation to their ovarian hormone profiles is limited. Consortia can be used to pool talent, expertise and data, thus accelerating our learning on a given topic and reducing research waste through collaboration. To this end, we have assembled an international multisite team, described here, to investigate the effects of the menstrual cycle and contraceptive pill phase on aspects of exercise physiology and sports performance in female athletes. We intend to produce an adequately powered, high-quality dataset, which can be used to inform the practices of female athletes. Our approach will also employ research transparency—through the inclusion of a process evaluation—and reproducibility—through a standardised study protocol.