Wearing boots designed for men causes discomfort for a majority of female rugby players, according to new research which finds as many as 89% of athletes experience pain from wearing shoes not built for women\u2019s feet.<\/p>\n
With the Women\u2019s Rugby World Cup coming to England in just over two weeks\u2019 time IDA Sports, a footwear brand designed for female athletes, called out what it describes as the \u201ciniquity\u201d of boot design that leaves women not only lacking comfort when playing but exposed to a heightened risk of injury.<\/p>\n
After scanning nearly 1,000 feet, of amateurs and players from across Premiership Women\u2019s Rugby, and surveying a further 330, IDA Sports found that comfort was the driving factor behind a player\u2019s boot choice, but one that was rarely met. While 78% said comfort was a top priority, nearly nine in 10 spoke of discomfort.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe findings of our many years of research and development \u2026 illustrate the inequities that women athletes face when it comes to footwear,\u201d said Laura Youngson, co-founder and chief executive of IDA Sports. \u201cWe hope that the findings of this study will not only draw attention to the impactful data, but push more brands to invest in women athletes as we have proudly done over the last seven years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some 45% of players surveyed said they specifically experienced pain under the first metatarsal bone, above their big toe. This is conventionally the location for a stud on a boot intended for a man.<\/p>\n
Youngson has said that female players will often file down the stud under the toe to reduce the pressure on the bone and IDA Sports adopted a different template for the studs on its female-centred boots.<\/p>\n
Sports scientists have also drawn attention to the risk of injury from studs not adapted specifically for women. Women\u2019s feet and arches are shaped differently to men and women also run in a different way. Studs under the metatarsal can risk injuring the bone, but also possibly increase the chance of damaging ligaments.<\/p>\n
Dr Matt Whalan, a consultant to Fifa on female health in football and a principal partner at Figtree Physiotherapy, explained these risks to the Guardian in a 2020 interview<\/a>. \u201cThe simplest thing to do is to look at the contact with the ground and the step\/pivot\/twist,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s maybe a 10-kilo weight difference between male and female footballers and we\u2019re going to put them in a same boot, that has the same traction, the same stiffness and that needs the same muscle capacity to control the traction that that boot will give.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n The latest rugby union news and analysis, plus all the week’s action reviewed<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019ve got a stud that is 15mm long and you\u2019re leaning really hard and having to change direction but you\u2019re 10 kilos lighter, do you need studs that long to get the same sort of traction? When you\u2019re getting a lot of traction that you don\u2019t need then that\u2019s when you start to put things at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wearing boots designed for men causes discomfort for a majority of female rugby players, according to new research…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45451,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-45450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}