Pelvic Floor Muscle Training in Female CrossFit and Functional Fitness Exercisers

NCT05341024 · Status: COMPLETED · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 51

Last updated 2024-03-22

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

There is a high prevalence of urinary incontinence (UI) among female athletes and exercisers, especially in sports including high impact activities and heavy weightlifting. CrossFit and functional fitness is a popular exercise form, including a combination of heavy lifting and high impact activities at high intensities. In several recent studies, high prevalence rates of UI have been reported among female CrossFit/functional fitness exercisers. UI is defined as "the complaint of involuntary loss of urine". Stress urinary incontinence (SUI) is the most common type of UI and is defined as "the complaint of involuntary loss of urine on effort or physical exertion (e.g. sporting activities), or or sneezing or coughing". Urinary leakage during sport activities may affect athletes' and exercisers' performance, cause bother, frustration and embarrassment and furthermore lead to avoidance and cessation of sport activities. Pelvic floor muscle (PFM) training is highly effective in treating SUI in the general female population. However, evidence of the effect of PFM training in exercisers participating in high impact and heavy weightlifting activities is sparse.

The purpose of this assessor-blinded randomized controlled trial (RCT) is to assess the effect of PFM training on symptoms, bother and amount of SUI in female CrossFit/functional fitness exercisers.

Conditions

Interventions

OTHER

Pelvic Floor Muscle Training in female CrossFit and functional fitness exercisers

The intervention will consist of a home-based PFM training program with weekly follow-up by phone by a physiotherapist. Before commencing PFM training, the participants in the intervention group will have an individual session with a physiotherapist including thorough teaching on how to perform a correct PFM contraction (clinical exams of pelvic floor muscle function by observation and vaginal digital palpation) and instructions on how to perform the training program. The program consists of 3 sets of 8-12 maximum contractions per day. An electronic app (Athlete monitoring) will be used to assess adherence to the program. The participants will be asked to register their training sessions in a personal account. A reminder to adhere to the program will be sent by phone. The training period will be 16 weeks and the exercises will take approximately 10 minutes per day to perform.

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • Norwegian School of Sport Sciences

    lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

  • Kari Bø, PhD · Norwegian School of School of Sport Sciences

Study Design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
SINGLE
Model
PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age
18 Years
Sex
FEMALE
Healthy Volunteers
No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2022-05-02
Primary Completion
2023-04-19
Completion
2023-04-19

Countries

  • Norway

Study Locations

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Entities

Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT05341024 on ClinicalTrials.gov