When was the last time you gave how you jump a second thought? For the benefit of your health and fitness routine, it might be time you did.
Jumping is the sort of fundamental movement that you probably think you mastered way before you showed off your skills in the primary school playground. In fact, you probably don’t give the action much thought anymore, even if you still play sport or are a bit of a gym bunny.
I hadn’t considered it much until a physio – helping me with yet another knee injury – said something simple yet surprising when I questioned what one of the reasons for being so injury-prone around my joints might be: “You might not have been jumping right since puberty,” she said.
Turns out, she was probably right.
Research suggests that the evolution of female hips and joints is very rarely factored into post-puberty fitness training – setting women up for injury and reduced physical performance, with a massive data gap to overcome too.
Want to stop that happening to you, whether you are a fitness newbie or PB seeker? We spoke to a leading physiotherapist to find out exactly what you need to know…
How puberty changes the female body
As you probably remember from sex education in school, puberty affects your body a lot, but for women it’s not just about getting your first period or body hair. While boys and girls share a similar body shape pre-puberty, women experience significant changes in their hip width, knee alignment and muscle distribution as puberty progresses. It wasn’t mentioned to me at the time (that I remember!), but these physiological shifts alter the way force is absorbed and distributed in our bodies, especially during jumping movements, and that increases stress on the knees and ankles in particular.
Unfortunately, because we ‘learned’ to jump and play as a child – and are never told to adjust our style – we still jump and land ‘like a boy.’
Why can women struggle more with injury?
The big consequence of ignoring these puberty-based changes is that they can really increase your risk of injury when exercising, and that’s just another hurdle for young women to overcome, considering girls already drop out of sport at a much higher rate than their male counterparts post-puberty.
The reason has nothing to do with men becoming generally stronger either.
“When girls go through puberty, research has shown that they tend to have greater knee abduction angles during jumping and landing [meaning we tend to jump with our knees falling in] which causes greater stress on ligaments,” explains the physiotherapist and founder of Core LDN, Claire Mills. “This impact on biomechanics is further affected by rapid limb growth during maturation which enhances knee abduction, and hormonal factors such as the menstrual cycle which cause fluctuations in oestrogen which can affect ligament laxity, increasing instability. This can all make you more susceptible to injuries.”
In fact, did you know that adult women are significantly more likely to suffer from anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tears in their knees than adult men? Research indicates that we are up to six times more at risk! More damningly, despite this significant discrepancy, hardly any women seemed to know much about this – myself included, despite two ligament-related knee injuries.
What about the exercise research and data gap?
To add insult to injury (if you’ll pardon the pun), traditional training programmes are often modelled after male biomechanics, meaning our training fails to address these risks, leading to further preventable injuries. That oversight isn’t just powered by ignorance or even potential sexism in sports training – there’s a massive data gap in sports science, which causes huge problems when trying to tailor training and injury prevention for women.
“There are tons of research studies in male sports and injuries, however for female sport, it’s estimated that less than 10 per cent of sport and exercise science research studies are done exclusively on females*,” reveals Mills. This means most of the time, findings are just being generalised to women, and this lack of sex-specific data has led to training protocols that do not consider the anatomical and physiological differences between the sexes.
What’s more, “generally there is less funding in women’s sports science, with elite female teams having less support, different facilities and medical teams,” continues Mills. “If we close the data gap and have a better understanding of sports science in females it will help to grow training programs and put in adequate support.” But, without more inclusive research, women will continue to be underserved by the fitness industry at all fitness levels.
How to rethink training for women
Luckily, there are ways to rethink your training programme to make it safer and more effective, whatever type of exercise you like to do.
In particular, (albeit mixed gender) studies suggest that emphasising proper landing practice, including ensuring you land without your feet or knees rolling inwards, and strengthening your glutes and hamstrings can significantly reduce injury risks while improving performance. So, focusing on proper strength and recovery exercises such as hamstring raises, squats and ankle strengthening – and watching yourself do them in the mirror – will help, as can body conditioning classes such as reformer Pilates.
“It’s important to gain a base-level strength and endurance, plus tailor training to biomechanics,” agrees Mills. “You could potentially adapt training around your menstrual cycles too, due to the hormonal impact it could have on ligaments.” That might involve reducing your practice of jump-based skills and impact training during your ovulation phase (when ligament-affecting oestrogen is at its highest).
Ultimately though, the main thing to remember is that your body’s response to exercise is unique and isn’t interchangeable with others of either sex – so your focus should be on protecting and improving your body, depending on its individual weaknesses.
“I wouldn’t say there’s a specific one-size-fits-all tailored training programme, but to prevent injury and optimise results, yours should include strength training, plyometrics, agility, balance and flexibility,” explains Mills. “If there is a concern around injuries then an assessment by a physiotherapist who can assess biomechanics and tailor your regime will help improve your results.”
After all, it’s not that women can’t jump – it’s that we probably haven’t been taught how to jump in a way that suits our bodies. With the right approach and advice, we should be able to push for those PBs with confidence and injury free.
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* https://theconversation.com/olympics-2024-shows-the-untapped-potential-of-female-athletes-235734 (Six per cent of all sport research is on female only participants according to this study).
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