Period tracking helps athletes
It’s all soooo awkward. How awkward? As awkward as discussing racists at cricket matches? As uncomfortable as the selection process for the next All Blacks coach? No, worse! I am referring to women’s bodies, which from where I’m standing in the queue for the toilet, STILL appear to be one of life’s great mysteries.
British female athletes are quietly developing an edge over the competition. They’re doing something mankind has never heard of mainly because womankind have been told not to talk about it; they’re figuring out how menstrual cycles affect athlete’s performances. I read about this standing in a queue for the loo – standard for women. If you think the reason this happens is because of make-up application then you’ll be surprised to hear that women aren’t the same as men on the inside and therefore will not react the same when it comes to training and playing sport. It’s a shame the scientists didn’t cotton on sooner.
An athlete’s period (menstrual cycle) is a good indicator of health. This year the English Institute of Sport launched the SmartHer campaign to educate coaches, physios and even athletes about women’s bodies. Yep, even woman have no idea how our menstrual cycles affect us because often our only option has been to grin and bear it. But it’s not our fault. Just like our pleas for the toilet seat to be put down, our need for knowledge about our own bodies has also been ignored.
There are some who don’t believe there is a gender pay gap so it’s going to blow their minds when I say, there’s also a data gap for women in sport actually, women in general. In the past medicine was dominated by men. Plus, most of the cells, animals and humans studied have also been male. It’s as if the scientists and researchers rubbed out the men’s dangly bits in the medical books and drew boobs and a vagina. Dr Janine Austin Clayton, an associate director for women’s health research at the United States National Institutes of Health (NIH), told the New York Times that the result is: ‘‘We literally know less about every aspect of female biology compared to male biology.’’
Researchers have blamed their use of the male species on the pesky menstrual cycle and unreliable hormones introducing too many variables. We get it.
It is annoying dealing with something so painfully unpredictable. But for some women this male bias has proven life-threatening, suffering side-effects from drugs for all sorts of medical problems that were only tested on men.
Fortunately, things are changing. I guess if you bang on the toilet door long enough someone will let you in and in Britain they are flinging open the doors for their female athletes. Instead of ignoring the yucky stuff, they are investigating the impact of the menstrual cycle and hormones on sports performance.
Research shows strength training is more advantageous in the first half of the menstrual cycle because the body adapts and recovers better.
Research scientist Georgie Bruinvels says the chance of cruciate ligament injuries is higher in the first half of the cycle and particularly in the build-up to ovulation. Amazing!
Last year I read that the Great Britain women’s hockey team have been tracking their periods since before the 2012 Olympics. They discovered a patten of soft tissue injuries and changed the training loads depending on a player’s menstrual cycle.
The World Cup-winning US women’s football team credited the use of period tracking in co-ordination with training, diet and sleep as one of the strategies that helped them win.
No woman’s period is the same. I get a headache two days before that no headache tablet will shift while my friends have suffered vomiting, extreme pain that leaves them curled up in bed, tiredness and bleeding so heavy that it’s not safe to be too far from the toilet. THAT’S why it can take us so long in there.
Now imagine dealing with that and being a worldclass athlete? And before you say, take ‘the pill’, that also doesn’t solve everything and can have sideeffects.
Like a free toilet cubicle, this kind of research can’t come soon enough. And it will be fascinating to see how it helps female athletes.
It’s already helped me. I’ve managed to say ‘menstrual cycle’ eight times in this piece which could be a new record for a sports column in New Zealand!