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In a giant state-of-the-art gym at the British army’s Kendrew Barracks in the East Midlands, Amy responds immediately when asked about her favourite aspect of military training. “Putting on my bergan and getting out there,” she replies, referring to the heavy-duty, 25kg military rucksack all recruits must learn to carry. “I really like putting myself in the hurt locker.”

During gruelling commando training the 24-year-old lines up against men often a foot taller, with 50% more upper body strength and 30% more muscle mass. It doesn’t seem to bother her.

“If we’re both there and we can both meet the requirements, it’s not a competition because I’m a woman, it’s about who’s the better soldier,” she says.

Her ability to be the best has been improved by the launch of a new blueprint for elite servicewomen in the British armed forces this week, with the military’s top scientists aiming to unleash female personnel’s “oestrogen advantage”, increase recruitment and prevent injuries.

“Historically, physical performance research has been based on male data,” says Dr Julie Greeves, the army’s principal physiologist and one of the authors of the new guide. “Now women in the military can feel that they’ve been properly taken care of, based on evidence.”

Based on a decade-long £20m study – which harvested data from 22,000 serving women – the guidance could have global implications, with researchers sharing findings with Nato allies about how to get the best out of female personnel through tailored training, nutrition, hormone tracking and kit. “The influence that we’re having with our Nato counterparts is honestly mind blowing,” says Greeves.

It could also unlock potential in female recruits, she argues. “There’s this whole evolutionary element [of female physiology] that I think we are really beginning to tap into,” says Greeves. “We call it the oestrogen advantage in defence.”

She points to research which shows that, like in ultra running, women’s bodies’ ability to draw energy from fat stores not muscle could aid performance during prolonged arduous patrols. Asked if this suggests global militaries have been missing a trick, she replies: “Yes, absolutely.”

Women currently make up about 12% of the British armed forces. But if defence leaders are to combat a 15-year recruitment and retention crisis, and get anywhere near a target of women forming 30% of recruits by 2030, better support for women in the military is vital, says veterans and people minister Calvin Bailey.

“Wars are won by society,” he says. “Our military has to be representative because otherwise our society won’t feel, understand and own it. I want to see society look at the military and see itself.”

The new research found that with tailored training women make similar strength gains as men, but need more time to do so, as well as supplements to combat nutrient deficiencies, protein-heavy diets and extra sleep. Without it women are more at risk of stress fractures and disruption to menstrual cycles which should be viewed as the body’s “fifth vital sign”.

There are questions to be asked about why women, who have been allowed in all combat roles since 2018, are only now going to receive sex-specific training based on in-depth research into their bodies.

Women in the military are 50% more likely to get injured than men. According to recent research from the University of Edinburgh female recruits experience “high rates of fractures, menstrual disturbance and adverse psychological outcomes, conditions related to perturbations in metabolic and hormonal function”.

One RAF recruit tells the Guardian she had received no sex-specific research when she joined and bought her own iron supplements. “We learned a bit about nutrition in the death by PowerPoint training period, but I used my own knowledge to make sure I was getting enough sleep and eating the right things – otherwise you just end up injured.”

A landmark 2021 report by former Conservative MP Sarah Atherton, then chair of the now dissolved subcommittee on women in the armed forces, found the military was “still a man’s world” and servicewomen were being put in danger of life-threatening injuries, through a failure to get “basics like uniforms and equipment right”. Servicewomen reported that armoured plates restricted their movement, oversized helmets hampered their vision and some were deliberately dehydrating themselves because there was nowhere for them to urinate.

At the launch of the new guidelines period products and high-performance sports bras are on display, while experts talk about the “she pees” female personnel can use to go to the toilet while on mission or in training. But while equipment rollout for servicewomen is improving, it remains glacial according to critics.

“They do have kit, but it runs out,” one servicewoman says. “Some of us buy our own, but you shouldn’t have to.”

Bailey, a RAF former wing commander with 24 years of service, admits that progress has been too slow. “Over the last 10 years female personnel have not just been fighting our adversaries; they’ve been fighting the kit and equipment, the training programmes, and their understanding of themselves,” he says. “Today is a really significant milestone in getting past that.”