Abstract
Purpose
Urinary incontinence is a common condition that potentially discourages women from participating in physical activity. This study aimed to determine the prevalence of urinary and athletic incontinence and establish which activities and contexts were most likely to provoke urine leakage in women CrossFit competitors.
Patients and Methods
This research was an international, cross-sectional, survey-based study. The online survey was completed by 452 women CrossFit competitors. The Incontinence Severity Index was used to determine the frequency and severity of urinary incontinence.
Results
Urinary incontinence was experienced by 41.8% of participants in the three months prior to the study and 17.7% experienced athletic incontinence. Women came to experience athletic incontinence through two different pathways. Some women were continent before commencing CrossFit (9.7%), remain continent during everyday activities but now experience urinary incontinence during exercise. Alternatively, 8% of women were incontinent before commencing CrossFit, are now continent during everyday activities but remain incontinent during exercise. High impact CrossFit activities were most likely to provoke urinary incontinence.
Conclusion
This study highlighted the importance of distinguishing between urinary incontinence that develops after commencing an exercise program in otherwise continent women and urinary incontinence that persists only during exercise in previously incontinent women.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank all the intermediates who assisted with circulating the questionnaire for this study, especially Antony Lo. The authors also thank Kelly Giblin for her contribution to the CrossFit specific aspects of the questionnaire and Donelle Cross for her work on the original pilot survey. Funding was provided for this study by Charles Darwin University.
Disclosure
The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.