The 2026 State of Women's Sport Psychology: What Research Says Is IN (and What Needs to Go OUT)

Picture this: You're sitting across from your sports medicine provider, frustrated because the ACL prevention program they just handed you—the one that's supposed to help you come back stronger—was never actually tested on female athletes. Or you're a pregnant runner being told to keep your heart rate under 140 bpm, a restriction that was never based on science in the first place. Or maybe you reported harm in your sport years ago, went through the investigation, and then... nothing. The system moved on. You didn't.

Unfortunately, this is the daily reality for far too many female athletes navigating a sports medicine and sports psychology landscape built primarily on male data, outdated assumptions, and crisis-only responses that abandon athletes when the spotlight fades.

But the past few years have started to bring us something different: a series of thought leaders, researchers, and International Olympic Committee Consensus Statements that have synthesized hundreds of research papers and started to name what female athletes have known for years. The gap between what research tells us you need and what you're actually getting may be closing, but it certainly isn't small. It's a chasm.

Here's what’s starting to change for girls, women, and athletes assigned female at birth in 2026.

IN: Survivorship Frameworks for Athletes Who've Experienced Harm

The Problem We're Ignoring

Let's start with a number that should fundamentally reshape how we think about athlete safety: Between 44% and 86% of athletes will experience some form of interpersonal violence during their careers (Vertommen et al., 2018). Read that again.

So when Dr. Jenny McMahon and Dr. Gretchen Kerr examined the 2024 IOC Consensus Statement on Interpersonal Violence and Safeguarding, they asked an important question that cuts to the heart of the matter: Does the IOC adequately address what happens to athletes after the investigation ends, after the headlines fade, after everyone else has moved on?

The answer they found was a resounding no.

What Research Actually Shows

The IOC Consensus Statement itself documents 63 distinct adverse outcomes of interpersonal violence—depression, anxiety, eating disorders, self-harm, post-traumatic stress, identity disruption, substance use, sleep disturbances, and dozens more spanning psychological, behavioral, physical, and performance domains (Tuakli-Wosornu et al., 2024). Sixty-three ways harm can show up in an athlete's life. Sixty-three consequences that don't simply vanish when a report is filed or an investigation concludes.

And unfortunately, research has shown that athletes continue to experience these consequences well into mid-life—even after leaving sport (McMahon & Kerr, 2026). The investigation may have ended. The perpetrator may have been sanctioned. The organization may have checked its compliance box. But the athlete? The athlete is still navigating the fallout, often feeling incredibly alone, with support systems that disappeared the moment the allegations became public or once the case closed.

The Solution: Survivorship Frameworks

Instead of treating harm as an isolated incident that gets "resolved," survivorship frameworks (originally developed in the oncology field) see consequences as fluctuating, lifelong, and multidimensional. The key features include individualized support tailored to each athlete's needs, ongoing monitoring rather than one-time intervention, coordinated communication across all providers, attention to impacts across all life domains, and crucially, life-spanning support that extends well beyond an athlete's competitive career.

What This Means for You

If your sport organization's response ended with an investigation, you don't have to accept that as the status quo. Stop waiting for systems to catch up. Instead, seek out coordinated, long-term support on your own terms—this might include ongoing therapy with a trauma-informed practitioner who truly understands sport culture, sport psychology services, peer support networks with other athletes who've taken this path, and medical monitoring that acknowledges the full scope of impacts.

It's also important to understand that consequences fluctuate over time. Symptoms may flare during major transitions, around anniversaries, or seemingly out of nowhere. This doesn't mean you're broken or that you haven't healed properly—it means you need ongoing support, not a one-time intervention that assumes everything is "fixed" after a set number of sessions.

OUT: "Trauma-Informed Care Fixes Everything"

The Well-Intentioned But Insufficient Solution

Trauma-informed care has become the default response to interpersonal violence in sport, and in many ways, that represents great progress. But real talk: it's not enough. While trauma-informed approaches absolutely matter, they suffer from two critical limitations that leave significant gaps in athlete support.

Limitation #1: Not All Harm Fits the Trauma Framework

When Kerr and colleagues (2025) examined safe sport practices through a critical lens, they identified a troubling pattern: many of the outcomes athletes experience—identity disturbance, relational instability, sport disengagement, behavioral changes—can't be neatly categorized as trauma symptoms. These are complex, multifaceted consequences that demand approaches extending far beyond traditional trauma-informed care frameworks.

Limitation #2: Clinicians Aren't Enough

Think about your daily life as an athlete. How often do you actually sit in a therapist's office? Once a week, maybe. Now think about how much time you spend embedded in relationships with coaches, trainers, administrators, teammates—people who shape your experience every single day.

If trauma-informed awareness stops at the clinician's door, you remain exposed to the same practices and power dynamics that enabled harm in the first place. Without organization-wide adoption, you continue encountering hierarchical control, dismissal of your voice, punitive responses when you set boundaries, and a performance-at-all-costs culture that treats your wellbeing as negotiable.

What This Means for You

Start asking harder questions of your sport organization: Has your coaching staff received trauma awareness training—and if so, what does that actually look like in practice? Can athletes set boundaries without facing retaliation or being labeled as "difficult"? Does the culture genuinely prioritize wellbeing alongside performance, or is that just language in a policy document? Coaches who successfully keep teen girls engaged in sport understand something fundamental: athlete wellbeing isn't separate from performance—it's the very foundation of sustainable development.

Advocate for system-wide change that extends far beyond clinical settings into the daily fabric of coaching practices and organizational culture. And if you're an athlete-survivor whose hesitancy to engage with sport-affiliated services runs deep, trust that instinct—it might be entirely rational. Consider seeking support from practitioners outside your organization who can offer truly confidential, conflict-free care without the complications of dual relationships or organizational loyalties.

IN: Pregnant Athletes Lifting Heavy and Logging Miles

The Myth That Nearly Every Pregnant Athlete Has Heard

"Keep your heart rate below 140."

"Don't lift more than 20 pounds."

"No high-intensity training."

If you're a pregnant athlete, you've heard at least one of these warnings. Probably all three. Your doctor delivered them with confidence. Your well-meaning mother-in-law repeated them with concern. They've been repeated so many times, by so many people, that they carry the weight of established medical fact.

Here's what almost no one tells you: These restrictions were never based on evidence. Not weak evidence. Not outdated evidence. No evidence at all. They were based on fear—fear of liability, fear of the unknown, fear of women's bodies doing anything that didn't fit narrow, outdated assumptions about pregnancy.

When Dr. Margie Davenport and her research team set out to develop the 2019 Canadian Guidelines for Physical Activity Throughout Pregnancy, they did something that should have been done decades earlier: They actually looked at the data.

What the Research Actually Shows

The answer is definitively yes—and the findings challenge nearly everything athletes have been told for generations. What Davenport's systematic review and meta-analysis revealed—synthesizing data from pregnant women across continents—should fundamentally change every conversation about exercise and pregnancy:

On exercise volume and intensity:

Prenatal exercise, including volumes that far exceed current conservative guidelines, is safe for both mother and fetus when no medical contraindications exist. High-intensity interval training? Well-tolerated. Fetal heart rate during maternal high-intensity exercise? Remains stable. Evidence of fetal distress when pregnant athletes train vigorously under proper supervision? None.

On strength training:

Resistance training during pregnancy, including heavy lifting when properly supervised, does NOT increase risk of miscarriage, preterm birth, or low birth weight. In fact, the opposite is true. Exercise interventions during pregnancy significantly reduce the odds of gestational diabetes, gestational hypertension, and preeclampsia (Davenport et al., 2018).

On back and pelvic pain:

Here's something else Davenport's team discovered: While prenatal exercise doesn't prevent low back or pelvic pain from developing during pregnancy, it dramatically reduces pain severity—with a large effect size that represents real, meaningful relief (Davenport et al., 2019). For the approximately 50% of pregnant women who experience these conditions, that matters.

On physiological reality:

Your body during pregnancy isn't fragile. Blood volume increases by 50%. Cardiac output increases by 30%. You're building a human while maintaining your own physiological systems. That's not weakness—that's remarkable resilience.

Those restrictions you were handed? The 140 bpm heart rate limit, the arbitrary weight restrictions, the fear-based limitations? They were never based on evidence. They were based on assumptions about what pregnant bodies could and couldn't do, assumptions that were never tested and never challenged—until now.

Critical caveat: These findings apply to athletes without medical contraindications (severe preeclampsia, placenta previa, certain heart conditions). The Get Active Questionnaire for Pregnancy helps identify when medical consultation is needed.

What This Means for You

Start by having evidence-informed conversations with your healthcare providers. Bring the 2019 Canadian Guidelines to your appointments. Ask about your specific risk factors rather than accepting blanket restrictions that were never based on science in the first place.

Fuel your body appropriately—this isn't optional. Energy needs increase by approximately 450 calories daily in the third trimester, and underfueling while training hard puts both you and your baby at significant risk. If you're already navigating the complex intersection of nutrition, mental health, and performance, evidence-based fueling strategies matter even more during pregnancy. Your brain and body need adequate energy to support both your training adaptations and fetal development simultaneously.

Finally, trust your body's remarkable adaptations. Pregnancy doesn't make you fragile—it enhances your physiological resilience in profound ways. The evidence overwhelmingly supports continuing the training that makes you feel strong, capable, and connected to your athletic identity during this transformative time.

OUT: Gender-Neutral Injury Prevention Strategies

The Hidden Bias in Sports Medicine

When Dr. Kay Crossley and an international panel of researchers convened for the 2025 IOC FAIR (Female/woman/girl Athlete Injury pRevention) Consensus Statement, they undertook something ambitious: seven systematic reviews synthesizing over 600 research papers involving more than 600,000 participants.

Of 182 research studies focused on evaluating injury prevention strategies, only 33% reported specific estimates for female, women, and girl athletes (Crossley et al., 2025). Let that sink in. In other words, two-thirds of injury prevention research either excluded female athletes entirely or lumped them together with male athletes and called it generalizable findings.

What does this mean in practice? For decades, we've been handing female athletes injury prevention programs tested exclusively on male bodies, assuming they'd work and assuming data would somehow translate. Spoiler alert: It often doesn't.

What Female Athletes Actually Need

The FAIR Consensus Statement provides 56 evidence-based recommendations specific to female/woman/girl athletes (Crossley et al., 2025). Here are the critical differences:

Equipment: Supportive sports bras in all sports, ankle braces, and protective equipment sized for female anatomy.

Biomechanical factors: Menstrual cycle affects ligament laxity and ACL injury risk. Female athletes show different movement patterns requiring neuromuscular programs addressing female-specific biomechanics.

Energy availability: Low energy availability associates with bone stress injuries. The Female Athlete Triad and RED-S require screening and intervention.

Training load: Menstrual cycle should inform high-load training planning and recovery timing.

The Broader Problem: Sport Exceptionalism

Here's where things get uncomfortable. When Kerr and colleagues (2025) examined why sport continues to resist evidence-based practices that are standard everywhere else, they identified what they call "sport exceptionalism"—the deeply held belief that sport is fundamentally different from other sectors and therefore shouldn't be held to the same standards.

Think about it: Teachers require licensing. Healthcare providers require licensing. But coaches? In most places, no license required, minimal oversight, and organizations that police themselves with little external accountability. Research that challenges sport culture? Often dismissed as coming from people who "just don't understand" the unique demands of athletic performance.

This exceptionalism isn't neutral. It directly enables inadequate safeguarding, gender-blind practices, and deep resistance to evidence-based change. It creates protective bubbles around practices that would never be tolerated in education, healthcare, or corporate environments.

What This Means for You

When working with sports medicine providers, ask the questions that cut through the assumptions: Was this program actually tested on female athletes, or are we hoping male-tested protocols translate? Does it account for menstrual cycle impacts on ligament laxity, recovery, and performance? Has anyone assessed my energy availability, or are we ignoring one of the most common risk factors for injury in female athletes? If you're navigating injury recovery, understanding female-specific considerations in brain health and concussion protocols becomes absolutely critical—because gender-neutral approaches consistently miss risk factors that disproportionately affect female athletes.

Demand female-specific approaches in every aspect of your training: supportive sports bras in all activities (not just "high-impact" ones), neuromuscular programs designed for female biomechanics, menstrual cycle tracking integrated into training periodization, and practitioners who genuinely understand female athlete physiology rather than treating you as a smaller male athlete. And recognize that confidence for female athletes operates fundamentally differently than it does for male athletes—the cultural pressures and systemic barriers you navigate daily require structural acknowledgment and change, not just individual mindset shifts.

Advocate relentlessly for change, because here's the truth: the evidence exists. The research is clear. The problem isn't knowledge—it's implementation.

The Bigger Picture: Why This All Matters

These aren't isolated issues that can be fixed with a policy tweak here or a new guideline there. They're symptoms of deeper, systemic problems that have been embedded in sport culture for generations.

The research gaps are staggering. When the FAIR Consensus Statement panel examined the evidence base for injury prevention, they found that less than 40% of studies include female-specific data (Crossley et al., 2025). Read that carefully: More than half of sports science research simply excludes or ignores female athletes. We're making decisions that affect millions of athletes based on incomplete, biased evidence—and then acting surprised when those recommendations don't work.

The sport exceptionalism we discussed earlier creates a protective bubble around practices that would never be tolerated in education, healthcare, or corporate environments. This same exceptionalism directly enables size bias and weight stigma in endurance sports, where harmful practices get normalized and even celebrated under the deceptive guise of "performance optimization."

Our approach to crisis response reveals another fundamental flaw: we excel at managing acute crises but fail spectacularly at providing sustained, coordinated support. Athletes training with complex health conditions experience this gap most acutely. Medical teams address the immediate presenting concern but lack the coordinated, long-term approaches that account for the intricate interplay between physical and psychological needs.

And perhaps most problematically, there's a profound lack of representation in decision-making spaces. When the people creating policies, designing research studies, and allocating resources haven't lived the realities they're attempting to address, critical gaps inevitably emerge.

What Happens Next: Moving from Knowledge to Action

Knowing all of this is one thing. Acting on it is another.

If you're an athlete, start questioning the guidelines you've been handed. Seek out evidence-based providers who can cite the research behind their recommendations. Advocate for your specific needs rather than accepting one-size-fits-all approaches that were never designed with you in mind.

If you're a coach or practitioner, commit to updating your knowledge base—not someday, but now. Examine critically which populations your go-to interventions were actually tested on. Create genuine space for athlete voice in decision-making, not just performative consultation. Understand that building psychologically safe team environments isn't a nice-to-have addition to your program—it's the foundational infrastructure that allows any evidence-based intervention to actually work. And recognize that creating truly inclusive spaces means going far beyond awareness campaigns. It requires concrete structural changes that center the safety, dignity, and needs of trans, non-binary, and gender-diverse athletes.

If you're a sport administrator, it's time to audit your organization's policies against current evidence rather than defending legacy approaches. Invest in long-term support systems, not just crisis management. Center athlete wellbeing in ways that are measurable and accountable, not just aspirational language in mission statements.

Your health, safety, and performance deserve approaches firmly grounded in evidence, not outdated assumptions that were never questioned. Your job isn't to wait patiently for systems to catch up. Your job is to know what the research actually says and to demand that your sport environment reflects it.

Female athletes deserve better than gender-neutral guidelines that ignore their biology. Athlete-survivors deserve better than crisis-only responses that abandon them after investigations conclude. Pregnant athletes deserve better than fear-based restrictions that were never supported by science. In 2026, with the research we now have, there's simply no excuse for accepting anything less.

Ready to work with a sport psychologist who grounds their practice in the latest research, not outdated assumptions? At Skadi Sport Psychology, we specialize in evidence-based mental performance support for female athletes. Whether you're navigating a comeback from injury, managing the psychological impacts of harm in sport, or seeking performance optimization during pregnancy and postpartum, our approach is grounded in current science and centered on your unique needs. Book a free discovery call to explore how we can support your mental performance, resilience, and wellbeing.

REFERENCES

Crossley KM, Whittaker JL, Patterson B*,* et al. (2025). Female, woman and/or girl Athlete Injury pRevention (FAIR) practical recommendations: International Olympic Committee (IOC) consensus meeting held in Lausanne, Switzerland. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 59, 1546-1559.

Davenport, M. H., Marchand, A. A., Mottola, M. F., Poitras, V. J., Gray, C. E., Garcia, A. J., ... & Ruchat, S. M. (2019). Exercise for the prevention and treatment of low back, pelvic girdle and lumbopelvic pain during pregnancy: A systematic review and meta-analysis. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 53(2), 90-98. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2018-099400

Davenport, M. H., Ruchat, S. M., Poitras, V. J., Jaramillo Garcia, A., Gray, C. E., Barrowman, N., ... & Mottola, M. F. (2018). Prenatal exercise for the prevention of gestational diabetes mellitus and hypertensive disorders of pregnancy: A systematic review and meta-analysis. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 52(21), 1367-1375. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2018-099355

Kerr, G., Gurgis, J., Wensel, S., Willson, E., Schwender, J., & Porter, J. (2025). Is sport safe with safe sport? A critical examination. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 81, 102964. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2025.102964

McMahon, J., & Kerr, G. (2026). Interpersonal violence and athlete wellbeing: Critiquing the IOC consensus statement through a survivor-centred lens. Sport, Education and Society. https://doi.org/10.1080/13573322.2026.2662999

Tuakli-Wosornu, Y. A., Burrows, K., Fasting, K., Hartill, M., Hodge, K., Kaufman, K., Kavanagh, E., Kirby, S. L., MacLeod, J. G., Mountjoy, M., Parent, S., Tak, M., Vertommen, T., & Rhind, D. J. A. (2024). IOC consensus statement: interpersonal violence and safeguarding in sport. British journal of sports medicine, 58(22), 1322–1344. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2024-108766