# the majority of research in fitness is done on men and then just applied to women - exercise advice is based on male-biased research [[(O’Halloran, 2020)]] > Much of the research in the field of sports science has been conducted on males and the findings of this research have been inappropriately applied to female athletes.[[(Carmichael et al., 2021)#^-jwky]] > However, sport science practices (e.g., training and recovery protocols, nutritional strategies, injury prevention in- terventions) in female sport are often underpinned by research conducted in male athletes, given the limited rep- resentation of female athletes in the sports performance literature. The underrepresentation is highlighted by a search of “injury” and “rugby” and “female” in the last 10 years of retrieving 196 articles, whereas the same search, replacing “female” for “male,” retrieved 602 articles.[[(Emmonds, 2019)#^7dndv]] > The guidelines available regarding the progress of resistance training are, however, mainly a result of research on men[[(Wikström-Frisén et al 2017)#^jucrn]] > Much of the research in the field of sports science has been conducted on males [[1](https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/4/1667#B1-ijerph-18-01667)] and the findings of this research have been inappropriately applied to female athletes [[2](https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/4/1667#B2-ijerph-18-01667)].[[(Carmichael et al., 2021)#^-jwky]]