I leak when I jump: the symptom almost no young athlete talks about

Leaking urine when jumping or landing affects on average 48.6% of adolescent female athletes, and 80% in trampolining. Yet 87% say they would not mention it to their coach. It is common, but common does not mean normal: what the data say about girls aged 13-17, why it is not their fault, and what a club can do without medicalising anything.

There is a symptom in youth women's sport that is both very common and almost never said out loud: urinary leakage during training. It happens when jumping, landing, sprinting, changing direction. Among adolescent female athletes the documented mean prevalence is 48.6% — nearly one in two — rising to 80% in trampolining. The most striking figure, though, is not the frequency: it is that 87% of girls say they would not mention it to the person who coaches them.

In brief

  • Across 633 adolescent female athletes (mean age 16.15 years), urinary incontinence prevalence ranges from 18.2% to 80%, with a mean of 48.58% (Rial Rebullido et al., 2021).
  • Jump-heavy sports lead the table: trampolining 80%, rope skipping 75%, soccer 62.8%.
  • 87% of adolescent athletes would not mention it to their coach; 69% to 90% had never heard of pelvic floor muscle training.
  • At the U20 World Athletics Championships in Lima 2024, 43.7% of 325 athletes reported at least one pelvic floor symptom (53.7% of the girls, 29.3% of the boys); 88% had never been screened (Giagio et al., 2025).
  • Common does not mean normal: it is a symptom to tell someone about, not to hide.

How many young female athletes leak urine during sport?

Nearly one in two, among those in impact sports. That is the finding of a PRISMA-guided systematic review that selected nine studies on athletes under 19, totalling 633 girls with a mean age of 16.15 years: urinary incontinence prevalence ranged from 18.2% to 80% depending on the discipline, with a mean of 48.58% (Rial Rebullido et al., 2021).

The variation is not random — it follows the movement pattern. The highest figures are in trampolining (80%), rope skipping (75%) and soccer (62.8%): the sports classified as high impact, the ones built on repeated jumps and landings, carry the worst numbers.

An independent dataset, collected in a completely different setting, points the same way. At the Lima 2024 World Athletics U20 Championships, a questionnaire given to 325 elite athletes (192 girls and 133 boys, mean age 18.1 years) found that 43.7% reported at least one pelvic floor dysfunction symptom: 53.7% among the female athletes versus 29.3% among the male athletes. 12.9% reported athletics-related urinary leakage, occurring — in the authors' words — during jumping, sprinting and change of direction (Giagio et al., 2025).

Two different populations, two different methods, the same conclusion: this is not an isolated case, it is a widespread condition in an age group where nobody names it.

Why "common" does not mean "normal"

This is the confusion that does the most damage, and the two ideas are worth separating.

The pelvic floor is the group of muscles that supports the bladder and pelvic organs and takes part in the continence mechanism; when the load it receives exceeds its capacity to respond — as happens in repeated impact movements — leakage can appear. That is the picture described in the literature underlying the reviews cited here. But the fact that the phenomenon is statistically common among athletes does not make it an expected physiological function: it makes it a frequent symptom in a population under a specific load. Those are two different things, and treating them as one is exactly what leads a fourteen-year-old to conclude there is nothing to say.

There is also an association with training load. In a cross-sectional study of 319 artistic gymnasts, team gymnasts and cheerleaders aged 12-36 (mean 17.4), urinary incontinence prevalence was 67.4%, and training four or more days a week was significantly associated with stress urinary incontinence, alongside being 16-17 years old and the type of sport practised (Skaug et al., 2022).

What does it actually cost, in training sessions?

The symptom on its own would be manageable: it is the withdrawal that grows around it that is expensive — and it affects more than one girl in five.

In the same study of gymnasts and cheerleaders, among those with stress urinary incontinence 82.6% reported a negative effect on their sporting performance, 28.4% used protective pads during activity, and 22.4% had at least sometimes avoided training or specific exercises for fear of leaking. 26.4% had never discussed it with anyone, and the recurring reasons were fear of visible leakage and embarrassment.

It is the same mechanism we have seen elsewhere: a withdrawal nobody records as an injury, yet one that removes training sessions exactly like an injury. It applies to pain too: in the data, adolescent girls with knee pain and no trauma seek help in 55.7% of cases versus 80% of those who had an injury — an event seems to be needed before it feels allowed to ask. It applies to menstruation — where 25% to 61% of adolescent girls reduce or avoid physical activity — and it applies to seemingly minor details like the sports bra. The symptom changes; the dynamic does not: the body changes, the environment stays silent, and the athlete removes herself from the situation. It is one of the threads that leads to dropping out.

How many girls talk to anyone about it?

Very few, and the number that sums up this article is not the prevalence: it is how few people know.

These are elite athletes with technical staff around them, at an international championship. It is the same information vacuum measured on other topics of a changing body, from iron to sleep. If the screening rate is 12% there, it is reasonable to expect it to be closer to zero at a local club. And as with the menstrual cycle and the coach, the silence is not girls being coy: it is the absence of a context in which the subject exists at all.

What the evidence says about what to do (and what it does not say)

Precision matters here, because this is a health topic involving minors.

A systematic review analysed six studies on 131 female athletes who followed pelvic floor rehabilitation programmes — muscle training, biofeedback, other techniques — lasting between 8 weeks and 4 months. Five of the six studies showed symptom improvement; in one of them 64% of the training group reported improved symptoms versus 8% of the control group (Demeco et al., 2024).

Now the limitations, which matter as much as the results:

So the honest conclusion is twofold. A documented therapeutic direction exists in adults, and the first step — telling someone — needs no evidence base at all. But assessment belongs to a healthcare professional: not the coach, not an article, not an app.

What a club can do, without medicalising anything

Three things, none of which require clinical staff on site.

  1. Name the topic once a year. One sentence in a team meeting — "if you leak when you jump, you are not the only one and it is nothing to be ashamed of: it can be talked about, and something can be done" — moves the problem out of the register of shame and into the register of health. It costs thirty seconds. It is the only lever that acts on that 87%.
  2. Know who to refer to. The coach does not need to know what to do: they need to know that professionals who handle this exist, and that a girl who raises it should be referred, not reassured with "that's normal".
  3. Do not ask for details. The subject is intimate and involves minors. Opening the door is not the same as asking questions: it means making it possible for the athlete to decide whether and when to speak, as with any body signal — and the words of the coaching staff make the difference between an open door and a closed one.

BAB's role

BAB does not treat and does not diagnose: it observes and gives language. It gives the athlete a private space to recognise her own signals over time, and an educational layer explaining, in non-clinical language, what is common, what is worth mentioning, and to whom. Clubs receive only aggregated, anonymous signals — never an individual's health data.

On a topic like this, the difference between a girl who quits and a girl who carries on is often not a treatment. It is somebody telling her, once, that she was not the only one.

Sources

This article is for information purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. If you experience urinary leakage during physical activity, or any persistent symptom, please consult a healthcare professional.

Is leaking a little urine when I jump normal for an athlete?

It is common, but common does not mean normal. A systematic review of 633 adolescent female athletes (mean age 16.15 years) found urinary incontinence prevalence ranging from 18.2% to 80% depending on the sport, with a mean of 48.58% (Rial Rebullido et al., 2021). So it is a very frequent symptom among girls in impact sports, not an inevitable feature of the female body: it is a signal worth telling someone about, not hiding.

Which sports does it happen in most?

The ones built on repeated jumping and landing. In the same review the highest prevalence was in trampolining (80%), followed by rope skipping (75%) and soccer (62.8%): sports classified as high impact carry the worst numbers (Rial Rebullido et al., 2021). A study of 319 gymnasts and cheerleaders aged 12-36 (mean 17.4) also found that training four or more days a week was significantly associated with stress urinary incontinence (Skaug et al., 2022).

How many girls tell their coach or a clinician?

Almost none. In the adolescent review, 87% said they would not mention their symptoms to their coach, and between 69% and 90% had never heard of pelvic floor muscle training (Rial Rebullido et al., 2021). Among the 325 athletes at the Lima 2024 World Athletics U20 Championships, 78.2% of those with symptoms had never disclosed them to anyone, 95.1% had not sought specialist care, and 88% had never been screened (Giagio et al., 2025).

Can anything be done? And does it apply to adolescents?

Yes to the first question, with honesty about the second. A systematic review of six studies on 131 female athletes found symptom improvement in five of six after pelvic floor rehabilitation programmes lasting 8 weeks to 4 months (Demeco et al., 2024). But the mean age of those participants is 23.19 years: they are adult athletes. The authors themselves flag that evidence specific to adolescent athletes is very limited. So: the direction is encouraging, the data on 13-14 year olds does not exist yet, and assessment belongs to a healthcare professional — not an app, not a coach.

Does leaking when jumping go away on its own with age?

There is no evidence that it resolves on its own, and the available data suggest the opposite: prevalence does not fall with age across adolescence. In the study of 319 gymnasts and cheerleaders aged 12-36, being 16-17 years old was significantly associated with stress urinary incontinence, alongside training four or more days a week (Skaug et al., 2022). And at the Lima 2024 U20 World Championships, among 325 athletes with a mean age of 18.1 years, 53.7% of the girls reported at least one pelvic floor symptom (Giagio et al., 2025): these are older athletes, not girls who grew out of it. Waiting is not a strategy; talking to a healthcare professional is.

What should a coach NOT do when an athlete brings it up?

Three things. First: do not reassure with 'that is normal' — it is common, not normal, and that difference is exactly what convinces a girl there is nothing to say. Second: do not ask for details or follow-up questions: the topic is intimate and involves minors, so opening the door does not mean walking through it. Third: do not prescribe exercises. Even in adults not every intervention works equally well — in one of the six studies in the systematic review, Kegel exercises alone produced no significant improvement (Demeco et al., 2024). Only one thing is needed from a coach: knowing who to refer her to.

Can urinary leakage make a girl stop playing sport?

It can reduce her training, and that is documented. Among 319 gymnasts and cheerleaders, 82.6% of those with stress urinary incontinence reported a negative effect on their sporting performance, 28.4% used protective pads, and 22.4% sometimes avoided training or specific exercises because of leakage (Skaug et al., 2022). Nobody records it as an injury, but it removes training sessions all the same.