Research summary · Women in sport
Physical-performance benchmarks across women’s football
A large synthesis establishes reference estimates for aerobic fitness, sprinting, change of direction, power, strength and maximal velocity across women’s football competition tiers.
- Publication year
- 2026
- First published online
- Publication type
- Systematic review and multilevel meta-analysis
- Journal
- Sports Medicine
- Population / context
- Women’s football · Competitive tiers
What the publication reports
The corrected dataset contained 1,855 estimates from 982 groups across 288 studies. Higher tiers generally showed better intermittent fitness, sprint and jump measures, with field-based intermittent tests showing some of the clearest tier differences.
Limits and interpretation
Protocols, sample sizes and competition levels were heterogeneous, and benchmarks describe groups rather than individual talent or causal training effects. The publisher corrected the study count, one tier definition and acceleration units after publication.
Read the source
Consult the original record for the full author list, methods, references, funding and competing-interest disclosures.
Benchmarking the Physical Performance Qualities in Women's Football: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis Across the Performance Scale
Original publication / indexed recordPMID: 40887564DOI: 10.1007/s40279-025-02251-0Full text at the sourcePublisher correction — read with the original paperReader discussion
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