About this Research Topic
Sports science/medicine research across all codes of football has largely ignored female athletes in previous decades. Reasons for this include a meager profile of elite female football players, inadequate funding, fewer female sports scientists in academia and elite-football organizations, as well as difficulty in controlling unique physiology related to the female-sex hormones. Nonetheless, in recent years, professional football leagues have launched and promoted women’s competitions which has prompted an accelerated growth rate in participation, media exposure, government and private funding, as well as sports science/medicine activity in all codes of football. What is required now, is an evidence-based approach to predicting and identifying the best talent, preventing short and long-term injury and illness, and optimizing training adaptations and performance.
Despite the small increase in sports science/medicine research activity on female athletes in recent years, there remains a large imbalance between what we know about men’s football and male football players compared to women’s football and female football players. Furthermore, the rapidly changing opportunities to compete and train at an elite level means that some previous data reported on the women’s game and female football players becomes quickly outdated. Finally, given the growing interest and funding opportunities in women’s sport research, there is a risk that some of the research outputs might be rushed to publication without careful consideration of unique female physiology, adequate statistical power, or sincere reflection of how one’s findings can be applied to advance women’s football. The intended scope of this Research Topic is to collect manuscripts that address female-specific talent identification, injury and illness prevalence and prevention strategies, as well as performance indicators of women’s football.
We particularly welcome studies on elite female athletes from all codes of football including: Football (Soccer, Futsal) Rugby Union (15’s, 7’s), Rugby League (13’s, 9’s), Australian rules football, Touch, Gaelic and American football. We aim to gather a collection of articles, including, but not limited to: Original Research, Case Studies, Reviews, General Commentaries and Perspectives that will advance knowledge and the practical implementation of training and monitoring methods to improve performance in women’s football.
Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):
• Talent identification in women’s football
• Code transfer in women’s football
• Non-contact lower-limb injury prevalence and prevention strategies in women’s football
• Concussion prevalence and prevention strategies in women’s football
• Prevalence/awareness of Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (RED-S) in women’s football
• Match and training movement patterns
• Physical and physiological characteristics of female football players
Despite the small increase in sports science/medicine research activity on female athletes in recent years, there remains a large imbalance between what we know about men’s football and male football players compared to women’s football and female football players. Furthermore, the rapidly changing opportunities to compete and train at an elite level means that some previous data reported on the women’s game and female football players becomes quickly outdated. Finally, given the growing interest and funding opportunities in women’s sport research, there is a risk that some of the research outputs might be rushed to publication without careful consideration of unique female physiology, adequate statistical power, or sincere reflection of how one’s findings can be applied to advance women’s football. The intended scope of this Research Topic is to collect manuscripts that address female-specific talent identification, injury and illness prevalence and prevention strategies, as well as performance indicators of women’s football.
We particularly welcome studies on elite female athletes from all codes of football including: Football (Soccer, Futsal) Rugby Union (15’s, 7’s), Rugby League (13’s, 9’s), Australian rules football, Touch, Gaelic and American football. We aim to gather a collection of articles, including, but not limited to: Original Research, Case Studies, Reviews, General Commentaries and Perspectives that will advance knowledge and the practical implementation of training and monitoring methods to improve performance in women’s football.
Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):
• Talent identification in women’s football
• Code transfer in women’s football
• Non-contact lower-limb injury prevalence and prevention strategies in women’s football
• Concussion prevalence and prevention strategies in women’s football
• Prevalence/awareness of Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (RED-S) in women’s football
• Match and training movement patterns
• Physical and physiological characteristics of female football players
Keywords: Female Athlete, Team Sports, Talent Identification, Lower-limb Injury, Match Demands
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
