Getting hurt happens. In sport, as in life. But for women, especially in competitive sport, the moment an injury occurs can change everything. And the menstrual cycle has much more weight on this than has been thought so far.
For years it has been repeated that female athletes were more “fragile”. Often without data, often with paternalistic tones. But now solid numbers are arriving, collected in the field, which tell a different and much more interesting story: we don’t get injured more during the cycle, but when it happens, the bill to pay is much higher.
It’s not a question of bad luck, but of changing biology
In women’s football there is a fact that always comes back: knees that give way, muscles that tear, long stops. Female players get hurt more often than male players and, for years, people have searched everywhere for the explanation. Wrong shoes, synthetic pitches, workloads, unsuitable training sessions. All plausible. All partial.
At a certain point, someone decided to look at the female body for what it really is: a system that changes over the course of the month. Hormones that rise and fall, energy that is not always the same, tissues that react differently to stress. A large study conducted by the medical department of the women’s FC Barcelona, one of the strongest teams in the world, has put together four years of real, lived, daily data. No abstract laboratory. Just training, matches, injuries and recoveries.
From 2019 to 2023, 33 professional athletes were monitored, in a period in which the team won two Champions Leagues. In total, over 850 menstrual cycles and 80 injuries that forced players to stop were analyzed. The cycle was divided simply: days of menstruation and days without bleeding. Nothing sophisticated, but concrete. The results are surprising.
During the menstrual cycle, players do not get more injured. Indeed, the data shows a slightly lower frequency than the rest of the month, even if the difference is not statistically significant. So far, nothing alarming. The problem emerges later. When an injury occurs during the cycle, recovery times explode. The days lost triple. More serious injuries, longer stops, more complicated returns. Not small annoyances, but injuries that can break a season.
Low hormones, lowered protections and a body that repairs worse
The key point is estrogen. A hormone that is often dismissed as “sexual”, but which actually protects muscles, tendons and ligaments. It helps tissues resist stress and repair themselves after trauma.
During the menstrual phase, estrogen and progesterone levels are at their lowest. It’s as if the body is temporarily less equipped to defend itself. If an injury occurs at that time, healing is slower and more complicated.
Added to this are other very concrete factors: loss of iron, increased tiredness, pain, cramps. Even a minimal alteration in muscle control, in high-level sport, can make the difference between a safe support and a wrong movement.
What really changes, on and off the pitch
This study doesn’t tell female athletes to stop when they’re on their period. It would be the wrong message, as well as dangerous. Players can train, play and win even during their periods. The data confirms it. What changes is how to manage the load and above all the aftermath. If an injury occurs during the cycle, more attention, more recovery, more care is needed. Sleep, nutrition and iron supplementation become central. Not details.
And then there is a point that concerns everyone, even outside professional sport: the female body is not linear. Change. Ignoring it isn’t strength, it’s shortsightedness. For too long sports science has studied almost exclusively men. This work doesn’t solve everything, but it opens a path. And it reminds us that listening to the body, even when it bleeds, is not weakness. It’s knowledge.
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