The research team, led by investigators at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China, recruited twenty female college soccer players aged nineteen to twenty-three from two university teams. Each participant completed the Yo-Yo Intermittent Endurance Level 2 Test, a widely validated soccer-specific fatigue protocol involving repeated twenty-meter shuttle runs at progressively increasing speeds. Fatigue was confirmed when athletes reached a heart rate of at least eighty-five percent of their estimated maximum or reported a rating of fifteen or higher on the Borg six-to-twenty perceived exertion scale. All twenty participants met the fatigue criteria before post-fatigue testing began.

Researchers assessed three movement tasks before and after fatigue induction: single-leg landing from a thirty-centimeter platform, double-leg landing from the same height, and a zigzag running course with four five-meter segments and a one-hundred-degree turning angle. Surface electromyography recorded activity from twelve lower limb muscles, including the rectus femoris, vastus lateralis, vastus medialis, biceps femoris, semitendinosus, and tibialis anterior on both legs. Force plates simultaneously captured peak vertical ground reaction forces, stabilization time, and center of pressure displacement, providing a complementary kinetic picture of how fatigue altered landing mechanics.

The most robust finding emerged during double-leg landing, where normalized muscle activation dropped significantly in three key quadriceps muscles. The right vastus lateralis showed a decrease from a median of 8.58 to 7.78 percent peak amplitude, the left vastus lateralis fell from 9.45 to 8.36, and the right vastus medialis declined from 9.86 to 8.27. Critically, these three results survived false discovery rate correction, a statistical safeguard that filters out findings likely to be false positives. Every other significant change in the study remained exploratory, meaning the authors urge caution in interpreting them as definitive fatigue effects.

During single-leg landing, the picture shifted. Peak vertical ground reaction force, normalized to body weight, decreased significantly on both sides after fatigue. The left foot dropped from 2.52 to 2.34 body weights while the right fell from 2.69 to 2.40, both surviving statistical correction. Stabilization time, the duration from ground contact until force fluctuations settled within five percent of body weight, also lengthened on the left side, though this finding did not survive correction and remains tentative. The authors suggest this combination may reflect a more conservative landing strategy adopted under fatigue, where athletes deliberately soften impact forces to maintain control at the expense of explosive cushioning.

In zigzag running, a pre-fatigue asymmetry in rectus femoris activation between the left and right legs, which was statistically significant before correction, disappeared after fatigue. The researchers note this could indicate either a strategic shift toward more symmetrical muscle recruitment or simply bilateral neuromuscular fatigue dampening output on both sides. Without concurrent kinematic data capturing joint angles and moments, the team cannot determine which interpretation is correct. They also acknowledge that because zigzag running was tested last, six to eight minutes after the fatigue protocol, partial recovery may have influenced the result.

The study’s context matters. Women’s soccer participation has surged globally, reaching approximately 16.6 million organized players as of 2023, and female athletes face a substantially elevated risk of non-contact anterior cruciate ligament injuries compared to males, with soccer players sustaining four to six times the risk. Fatigue, bilateral lower limb asymmetry, and neuromuscular control deficits are recognized as key contributors. Collegiate athletes, who often train with less structured periodization than professionals, may be particularly vulnerable to fatigue-induced changes in movement strategy.

The authors are careful to frame their conclusions within the study’s limitations. The sample was drawn from only two university teams, the within-subject design lacked a non-fatigued control group, and the fixed testing sequence means task-order effects cannot be fully separated from fatigue effects. Sleep, nutrition, and menstrual cycle data were not collected. Nonetheless, the findings offer preliminary support for targeted training interventions, including unilateral stability work, quadriceps fatigue resistance, and multidirectional neuromuscular conditioning tailored to the demands of change-of-direction play.

For coaches and sports scientists, the message is that fatigue does not degrade all muscles equally or uniformly across tasks. The knee extensors appear most vulnerable during bilateral landing, while single-leg stability and cutting mechanics show different patterns of adaptation. As women’s soccer continues its rapid global expansion, understanding these task-specific neuromuscular responses may prove essential for designing injury prevention programs that keep athletes healthy deep into matches and tournaments.

Subject of Research: Effects of fatigue on lower limb neuromuscular control and landing biomechanics in female collegiate soccer players

Article Title: The impact of fatigue on lower limb neuromuscular control in female college soccer players

Article References: Xiang, T., Zhu, T., Ma, H., Mu, Z., Han, Z., Imai, K., Shen, S., Guo, Z., & Zhou, X. (2026). The impact of fatigue on lower limb neuromuscular control in female college soccer players. Frontiers in Sports and Active Living, 8, Article 1918634. https://doi.org/10.3389/fspor.2026.1918634

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3389/fspor.2026.1918634

Keywords: sports science, female athletes, soccer, neuromuscular control, fatigue, ACL injury, biomechanics, electromyography, impact, lower, limb, neuromuscular

The first of two recent studies from Lund University draws on insurance data spanning six seasons. All ice hockey-related injuries that led to a claim under the players’ licence insurance were recorded by the insurance company, providing a nationwide, objective measure of injury burden across the league. In the season before body-checking was introduced, the reported injury rate stood at 6.6 injuries per 1,000 player-hours. The following season, the figure surged to 16.7 injuries per 1,000 player-hours, an increase that represents far more than a statistical fluctuation in a league of this size.

The numbers did not remain at that peak. Injury rates fell slightly in subsequent seasons, and the average across the six seasons studied settled at 11 injuries per 1,000 player-hours, compared with an average of 6.0 for the corresponding period before the rule change. Amanda Lahti, a researcher at the Centre for Primary Care Research at Lund University and lead author of both studies, cautions that the long-term trajectory remains uncertain. Injury rates may continue to fall as players adapt to the physical nature of play, but that remains to be seen. She also notes that it is not possible to say with certainty that the higher injury figures are due to body-checking, although she and her colleagues speculate that this is the case, since everything else remains the same compared with previous seasons.

The pattern of injuries offers clues about the mechanisms at work. Shoulder and knee injuries were the most common claims handled by the insurance company, and Lahti speculates that this may be because players take body-checks against the boards with their arms outstretched, a position that loads the shoulder complex and exposes the knee to rotational forces. From a biomechanical standpoint, this is consistent with what is known about board collisions in ice hockey: when a player is checked into the boards with an extended arm, the impact energy is transferred through the glenohumeral joint, while the lower body absorbs unpredictable twisting forces on the ice surface. The apparent levelling-off of the figures could possibly be interpreted, according to Lahti, as players learning to play a more physical game over time, acquiring the positioning, anticipation and body control that male players in checking leagues typically develop from junior levels onward.

The second study took a different methodological approach, drawing on a prospective injury register maintained by the medical staff within the league. Rather than relying on insurance claims, this study identified injuries that resulted in absence from training or matches, giving a clinical picture of the burden that directly affects team availability. A total of 46 match-related injuries were recorded during the study period. The results show that body-checking is now the most frequent cause of injury in the league, and that it is often associated with concussion, which has become the most common type of injury overall.

Two further findings from the clinical register deserve particular attention. First, players often continued to play in games despite being injured: in six out of ten cases of concussion, the player remained on the ice. This is a troubling figure for anyone involved in athlete welfare, since continuing to play with a concussive injury risks second-impact syndrome and prolongs recovery. Second, most of the injuries, including concussions, occurred in the third period, towards the end of the game. Lahti suggests this could indicate that fatigue increases the risk of injury, a well-recognised phenomenon in contact sports, where deteriorating neuromuscular control late in play compromises a player’s ability to prepare for and absorb impacts.

Lahti points out that the explanation for late-game injuries may extend beyond simple tiredness after a tough match. As female ice hockey players generally earn less than their male counterparts, many combine elite sport with paid work, which can limit their recovery and contribute to increased fatigue. She would like to go on and gain a deeper understanding of how sleep and recovery might affect the risk of injury, a question that sits at the intersection of sports medicine, physiology and the social realities of semi-professional women’s sport. Chronic under-recovery, whether driven by compressed schedules, employment demands or insufficient sleep, is increasingly recognised as a modifiable risk factor for both traumatic and overuse injuries.

She is careful to emphasise the limitations of the work. The clinical study tracked the development of injuries over only two years and is based on a relatively small number of injury incidents, which means the results should be interpreted with some caution. Nevertheless, the findings raise important questions and form the basis for further research. Lahti argues that female athletes should not be regarded as “little men”: biological, anatomical and social differences influence the risk of sports injuries, yet only a small proportion of sports medicine research is carried out on women. This makes women-specific studies essential. Although the study has its limitations, she says, it provides important insights and baseline data for the continued monitoring of the cohort and the progression of injuries over time. As a specialist in general medicine and a sports doctor, she works on the prevention of injuries on a daily basis, giving the research a direct clinical grounding.

Perhaps the most intriguing result is a discrepancy at the heart of the findings: the players themselves remain positive about body-checking, and they do not believe it leads to more injuries. This stands in sharp contrast to the objective injury data, which show a marked rise in claims and a new leading cause of injury. Lahti will be examining this mismatch between the players’ own perceptions and the injury data in more detail in a forthcoming paper. Among other things, she has sought the help of a gender researcher from the International Olympic Committee to gain a better understanding of it. The divergence may reflect how athletes weigh the costs and benefits of physical play, how norms within the sport shape perceptions of risk, or how the identity and legitimacy that body-checking confers on the women’s game influence players’ willingness to accept its consequences.

The international significance of the Swedish experiment is considerable. Both the United States and Canada have also recently started to allow body-checking in women’s hockey, and they are keen to know what impact the change has had in Sweden. The Lund studies offer the first rigorous baseline against which other hockey nations can measure their own experience. Lahti’s work has now received a further boost in the form of a grant of SEK 1.2 million from the Dr P Håkansson Foundation, which she describes as very significant and one she hopes will help generate more knowledge that promotes women’s participation in sport at both recreational and elite levels, as well as contributing to the development of the sport. Whether injury rates continue to decline as players adapt, whether concussion prevention measures can blunt the most serious risks, and why players perceive the game as safer than the data suggest, are questions that the coming years of monitoring this unique cohort are expected to answer.

Subject of Research: Effects of legalising body-checking on injury rates in elite women's ice hockey

Article Title: More injuries following the policy change of body-checking in women’s ice hockey – but the players are positive about the change

Article References: More injuries following the policy change of body-checking in women’s ice hockey – but the players are positive about the change. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: women's ice hockey, body-checking, SDHL, injury epidemiology, concussion, sports medicine, Lund University, insurance data, athlete recovery, female athletes, Sweden, injury prevention

The study, known as the Mum-Alete survey, was led by Victoria K. Norbury of Olympic Park Sports Medicine Centre in Melbourne, together with colleagues including Aaron T. Scanlan of CQUniversity, Rachel Harris and Richard Saw of the Australian Institute of Sport, and Jorunn Sundgot-Borgen of the Norwegian School of Sports Sciences. The team recruited Australian athletes who had been training or competing at a high-performance level in the six months before conception and who gave birth between July 2016 and February 2022. From 168 people who started the online survey, 64 postpartum athletes met the strict inclusion criteria and contributed data to the analysis.

The calibre of the respondents is striking. Half of the athletes had competed at world championship, Olympic, Paralympic, or Commonwealth Games level, and a further 45 percent had competed at national championship, domestic professional, or international level. In other words, 95 percent of the sample had competed beyond state or territory level, spanning both individual and team sports. The athletes were, on average, 32.5 years old when pregnant and 33.6 when they completed the survey, and most gave birth in 2020 or 2021, meaning their postpartum journeys unfolded against the backdrop of COVID-19 restrictions in Australia.

The headline finding concerns speed. Sixty percent of the athletes resumed some form of physical activity or exercise within six weeks of delivery, and 95 percent had returned to some form of training within 12 weeks. But the timeline was not uniform across training modalities. Pelvic floor exercises came first, with 74 percent of athletes starting them before the six-week mark, a pattern the authors interpret as a deliberate priority on rebuilding the muscular foundation that must withstand the substantial forces transmitted between the lower and upper body during running and other high-impact tasks. Half of the athletes had begun strength training within 12 weeks, while endurance training and sport-specific skills work generally followed later, with 87 percent and 84 percent respectively resuming those components within 12 months.

That early return came at a cost. Fifty-nine percent of respondents reported that pregnancy had negatively affected their performance since returning to high-performance sport, with only a small minority describing improvements. Meanwhile, 43 percent of the 63 athletes who answered the injury question reported sustaining a sport-related injury during their postpartum return, and 19 percent reported more than one. The specific problems athletes described read like a catalogue of musculoskeletal misfortune: a coccyx fracture, a hamstring strain, a hip labral tear, a pelvic stress fracture, quadriceps pain, and recurrent knee pain. Among those injured, 73 percent said the injury affected their ability to continue high-performance training, and one athlete was forced to take two full years away from elite training and competition.

The authors connect these outcomes to a plausible physiological chain. Nearly half of the respondents, 47 percent, stopped high-performance training entirely during pregnancy, and among those who kept training, all but five reduced their load. Reduced training volume during pregnancy has been linked to diminished fitness and a reduced capacity to tolerate the high training volumes needed after delivery. The researchers point to related evidence suggesting that pre-pregnancy training levels were associated with a 24 percent reduction in reported musculoskeletal injury postpartum, whereas cutting training volume by more than half during pregnancy nearly doubled the likelihood of reporting such an injury. Postpartum hormonal shifts, altered body mass, bone remodelling, and changes in muscle activation and tendinous and ligamentous structures may further lower the tolerance of body tissues to injury-inducing stress.

Beyond the physical, the survey catalogued a dense web of social and logistical challenges. Time management topped the list, cited by 76 percent of athletes, followed closely by loss of fitness and skills at 74 percent and breastfeeding at the same figure. Sleep was a challenge for 67 percent, stress for 59 percent, travel and childcare for 55 percent each, and pelvic floor issues or urinary incontinence for 51 percent. Notably, most athletes did not identify any single factor as an absolute barrier, suggesting that with the right support these obstacles are surmountable rather than career-ending. Family support, cited by 54 percent, and medical staff, cited by 51 percent, emerged as the most common facilitators, and athletes overwhelmingly felt supported by partners, family, coaches, teammates, and medical staff.

The glaring exception was the sporting organisation itself. Only 42 percent of athletes felt supported by their organisation, with most of the rest neutral, and 27 percent explicitly identified their organisation as a challenge or barrier. The numbers on policy awareness are perhaps the most damning: 45 percent of athletes said their organisation had no pregnancy or postpartum policy, and another 36 percent were unsure whether one existed. Similarly, 38 percent did not know whether their organisation had a well-being officer or programme. Many athletes also reported a lack of practical provisions such as maternity leave, status protections including stipends, caregiver allowances to attend training, and dedicated spaces for childcare and breastfeeding at training facilities.

The qualitative arm of the study, drawing on 880 open-ended comments that were coded into 1,225 excerpts, distilled eight major themes: critical support, training new bodies after delivery, navigating motherhood and sport, time and time management, education and expertise, injuries and safe return, breastfeeding while competing, and discrimination. That last theme, discrimination, was unique to this Australian sample and was directed specifically at the organisational level, reinforcing the authors’ call for governing bodies to develop effective policies for postpartum athletes. The findings echo earlier international work, including interviews with elite athletes in Spain, New Zealand, North America, and the United Kingdom, which identified similar struggles with guilt, identity, and balancing mother and athlete roles, alongside unexpected benefits such as enhanced motivation and adaptability.

The study’s practical implications are clear even if its limitations, including retrospective self-reported data, a single-country sample, and no standardised definition of the postpartum period, temper causal claims. The authors argue for structured screening when athletes return to sport, targeted education for coaches and medical staff in areas such as pelvic floor rehabilitation, breastfeeding, and nutrition, sleep hygiene and mental health support potentially coordinated by a dedicated well-being officer, and organisational investment in childcare, facilities, and flexible training arrangements. The Australian Institute of Sport has since developed Best Practice Recommendations to Support Elite Athletes from Preconception to Parenthood, advocating inclusive policies, personalised care plans, and protections for athlete funding and employment. This study, conducted before those recommendations took effect, now stands as a benchmark against which future progress can be measured, and a reminder that the mothers rewriting the rules of elite sport are doing so largely without a rulebook.

Subject of Research: Experiences of Australian female athletes returning to high-performance sport after pregnancy

Article Title: The Mum-Alete: An Observational Survey-Based Study of Australian Athletes Returning to High-Performance Sport After Pregnancy

Article References: Norbury, V. K., Scanlan, A. T., Harris, R., Saw, R., Sundgot-Borgen, J., Hughes, D., & Hayman, M. (2026). The Mum-Alete: An Observational Survey-Based Study of Australian Athletes Returning to High-Performance Sport After Pregnancy. Sports Medicine – Open, 12(1), Article 143. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40798-026-01114-w

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s40798-026-01114-w

Keywords: female athletes, postpartum, return to sport, pregnancy, pelvic floor, sports injuries, elite sport, organisational policy, breastfeeding, childcare, sports medicine, Australia