WNBA Doctor: Sports Medicine Must Get Better at Treating Women | Opinion
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0 Share Newsweek is a Trust Project member See more of our trusted coverage when you search. Prefer Newsweek on Google to see more of our trusted coverage when you search. As the primary care sports medicine doctor for the New York Liberty basketball team—and a former Division I athlete—I've seen more sports injuries than I can count.
It's easy to get injured doing what we love—injury prevention, treatment, and recovery are natural parts of any athlete's journey. But even as more eyes turn to women's sports, and female athletes surge in popularity, there's still a great deal that sports medicine doctors don't know about actually treating women.
We need increased investment in women's sports science—not just to improve outcomes for elite athletes, but to improve care for women and girls across the healthcare system.
Women have long been underrepresented in medical research. Before Congress mandated inclusion in the 1990s, researchers rarely included women in medical trials. In the 1970s, the Food and Drug Administration even explicitly recommended excluding women of childbearing potential. Many—predominantly male—researchers simply considered male bodies the norm, and assumed that they could apply the results of all-male trials to women.
But women are not just "tiny men." They have very different anatomies and physiologies, which in turn respond very differently to physical activity compared to men—especially as they get older. I've seen it firsthand.
Take a common athlete's injury: a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). Women tear their ACLs at far higher rates than men—in basketball, for example, women are more than three times as likely to tear their ACL, and most of those tears occur without direct contact to the knee, from movements such as landing and pivoting.
That's partly due to a simple difference in anatomy. Women have a wider pelvis and wider hips, which can change the biomechanical loading—force and pressure—on the knee. Without specific injury prevention programs, that can increase risk of injury. Certain hormones can also affect ligament integrity and laxity. Women also tend to rely more heavily on their quad muscles when landing from a jump, rather than distributing force through the glutes, hamstrings, and hips. That landing pattern can place greater stress on the knee and increase strain on the ACL.
The ACL is one example of many. Women routinely undergo significant hormonal and bodily changes that can dramatically affect their movement. I've previously written, for instance, about how pregnancy affects women's movement—and that we need intentional and individualized approaches to optimize postpartum recovery.
Many are familiar with the hormone-induced changes that occur in pregnancy. Similarly, the aging woman experiences musculoskeletal changes. Some are directly due to hormones, and many are entirely unique to women.
As women age and eventually enter menopause, their estrogen levels decrease. That decline can lead to reduced muscle mass and bone mineral density. Women can lose about 2 percent of bone mass each year before menopause—and at least 3 percent after. As a result, women face a greater risk of osteoporosis. With a weakened bone anchor system, they are also at an increased risk of musculoskeletal injuries like tendon injuries—such as rotator cuff tears—and stress fractures.
Women are now competing and working out at high intensity levels for longer than ever before, both at the professional and recreational level. We need to expand our understanding of how best to support them and aid injury prevention and longevity.
Even now, only about 6 percent of sports research is done on women. And much of that research is on younger female athletes. That means that as women start competing for longer, doctors like me—who play the essential role of keeping people healthy and moving throughout different stages of their lives—need to provide care that is truly based in evidence specific to women's anatomy and physiology.
Now's the time to push for more research efforts and funding. Women's sports have never been so popular. Media coverage for women's sports reached a record 15 percent in 2024.
In basketball, young athletes like Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese are expanding viewership and pushing for an acknowledgment of the value of women's sports. We must use that momentum to push for more research that can inform doctors on how best to preserve and protect women's health as they play.
Household names like Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi—who created space and a platform by playing in the WNBA into their 40s—deserved, but did not have, women-specific studies to back their training and help prevent injury.
Ultimately, this kind of research won't just help the increasing numbers of elite female athletes. It'll give doctors across the country the tools they need to keep women healthy and active throughout every stage of their lives.
We're entering a new era for women's sports. It's time for women's medicine to catch up.
Dr. Ashley Austin is a Primary Sports Medicine Physician in the Women’s Sports Medicine Center at Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) in New York City.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
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