## 4 Discussion  
The main findings of the present study showed that a 6-week pelvic floor exercise program guided by a smartphone application helped to reduce symptomatology regarding UI and improve pelvic floor muscle strength through an increase in the Modified Oxford scale. Although these results are not better than those observed in females who used the same application without accessing the exercise program, only athletes who performed the program, with or without intravaginal biofeedback guidance, improved compared to the baseline. In our study, although all female athletes who belonged to both experimental groups improved PF strength and symptomatology with respect to the baseline, values reached post-intervention were not significantly higher than those observed in athletes from the control group. In this term, the proposed exercise program consisted of 6 weeks of training \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c c c c c c} \hline \hline  & & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**Pre**} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**Post**} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**Intra-Group (Pre vs. Post)**} & \multicolumn{3}{c}{**Between-Group (At Post)**} \\  & & **Mean** & **SD** & **Mean** & **SD** & **Mean** & **95\%CI** & **ES (d)** & & **Mean** & **95\%CI** & **ES (d)** \\ \hline ICIQ-SF & CG & 4.92 & 5.60 & 4.58 & 5.28 & \(-\)0.33 & (\(-\)1.20–0.63) & NS & CG vs. EG1 & 0.51 & (\(-\)2.85–5.13) & NS \\ (Score) & EG1 & 7.15 & 5.08 & 4.08 & 3.25 & \(-\)3.08* & (\(-\)6.01–0.14) & 0.7 & CG vs. EG2 & 1.37 & (\(-\)2.13–5.72) & NS \\  & EG2 & 7.64 & 4.05 & 3.21 & 3.47 & \(-\)4.43* & (\(-\)6.89–1.97) & 1.2 & EG1 & EG2 & 0.86 & (\(-\)3.27–4.58) & NS \\ \hline Wexner & CG & 0.92 & 1.78 & 1.08 & 1.78 & 0.17 & (\(-\)0.16–0.41) & NS & CG vs. EG1 & 1.08 & (\(-\)0.02–1.88) & NS \\ (Score) & EG1 & 0.85 & 2.30 & 0.00 & 0.00 & \(-\)0.85 & (\(-\)0.50–2.07) & NS & CG vs. EG2 & 0.94 & (\(-\)0.14–1.73) & NS \\  & EG2 & 0.64 & 1.34 & 0.14 & 0.53 & \(-\)0.50 & (\(-\)0.34–1.27) & NS & EG1 vs. EG2 & 0.14 & (\(-\)0.80–1.07) & NS \\ \hline FSFI & CG & 8.75 & 5.48 & 8.83 & 5.41 & 0.08 & (\(-\)0.84–1.13) & NS & CG vs. EG1 & 1.86 & (\(-\)3.02–5.26) & NS \\ (organsm) & EG1 & 9.54 & 5.17 & 10.69 & 4.97 & 1.15 & (\(-\)0.15–2.46) & NS & CG vs. EG2 & 4.47 & (\(-\)0.20–7.91) & NS \\ (Score) & EG2 & 11.69 & 4.11 & 13.31 & 1.60 & 1.62 & (\(-\)0.66–1.95) & NS & EG1 vs. EG2 & 2.62 & (\(-\)1.40–6.88) & NS \\ \hline FSFI (pain) & CG & 9.33 & 6.27 & 8.75 & 5.89 & \(-\)0.58 & (\(-\)2.60–3.18) & NS & CG vs. EG1 & 2.02 & (\(-\)4.21–6.90) & NS \\  & EG1 & 11.08 & 5.42 & 10.77 & 6.25 & \(-\)0.31 & (\(-\)2.52–3.14) & NS & CG vs. EG2 & 3.40 & (\(-\)2.67–8.24) & NS \\ (Score) & EG2 & 12.08 & 4.23 & 12.15 & 5.57 & 0.08 & (\(-\)2.45–2.88) & NS & EG1 vs. EG2 & 1.38 & (\(-\)4.11–7.00) & NS \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 2: Symptoms of female athletes before and after the intervention period. with specific pelvic floor exercises, three sessions per week, approximately 15-20 min in duration. Although these parameters are in accordance with recent studies that suggested a minimum training of 6 weeks to find improvement [24], the duration is in the lowest limit. In fact, other studies affirmed that programs of less than 8 weeks may induce improvements in pelvic floor parameters as a consequence of learning factors and body consciousness. It seems to be that this short duration is insufficient to achieve muscle hypertrophy [25]. For this reason, other studies suggest interventions of at least 12 weeks [26]. Based on our results, this suggestion may be appropriate even for the female sports population. Our results also show a significant time effect in VRP for all participants, with lower values after the intervention period. Once again, this finding could have resulted from an increase in information because all participants had access to the informative section of the smartphone application. In addition, all athletes were instructed to perform PF contraction during the sessions of evaluation before and after the intervention period.