## 4 Discussion
The direct and continuous tele-communication with physiotherapists of our proposal of intervention avoid the lack of attention and feedback, while allowing athletes to perform the exercises at any time of the day. The fact that the exercise program was specifically designed for female athletes could facilitate the absence of fatigue. As additional points that could explain our results of adherence, we state that motivation and discipline are characteristics of the sports population. Our study has limitations. Firstly, we acknowledge the short duration of the exercise program. Although previous studies suggested 6 weeks as a minimal duration for an effective exercise program, this short time could limit the improvement of variables pending structural modifications. Previous studies that proposed a pelvic floor exercise program with smartphone applications observed electromyographic modifications after 12 weeks, without improvements in PF symptoms [42]. Therefore, a plausible explanation for the lack of differences in sonography in our study could be related to the period of intervention. Instead, the same study registered an increase in adherence to the program due to the use of the smartphone application [42]. Similarly, we also observed high rates of adherence, even though the frequency of the program was higher than usual (three times per week). This high adherence probably facilitated the trends to reductions in the PF symptomatology observed in the experimental groups. Despite the benefits of using a specific smartphone application, it is needed to consider a potential lack of accuracy during the performance of the exercises without essential supervision. This fact could directly affect the effectiveness and safety of these exercises. To compensate for this aspect, our participants received different resources to ensure the proper contraction of the pelvic floor during the exercises. Secondly, our participants were female athletes who competed in track and field modalities. Although this aspect allows exploring female athletes specialized in these sports modalities, it hampers the extrapolation of the results to other populations. Also, long-term monitoring of the symptoms of females would have been useful to explore the sustainability of the potential effects after the exercise program. Finally, although potential risk factors related to sports practice were asked, specific individual training of athletes could have affected results. Future studies should explore the effects of a similar exercise program in different sports, with longer intervention duration and monitoring individual training parameters, as possible influencing variables. For studies focused on improving PF symptomatology of female athletes, it would be interesting to incorporate an initial supervised perennial session of exercises prior to starting the autonomous program. This could improve the effectiveness and safety of these type of interventions. As practical applications, the use of this smartphone application may be helpful to improve pelvic floor symptoms and strength, apart from helping to maintain compliance to the exercise program. Despite the autonomous performance of the exercise program, the use of this smartphone application allows healthcare professionals to supervise female athletes who tend to drop out of the exercise programs or avoid the face-to-face relationship regarding their pelvic floor dysfunctions.