Women athletes face huge obstacles

SPORTSWOMEN should avoid taking hormonal contraception if they want to compete at their best, says a Johannesburg coach who specialises in women’s health.

And even those who are not on contraception still face obstacles, especially those who fail to design training programmes around their menstrual cycles.

Claudia Slattery, who did a Masters degree on why women quit sport before reaching their full potential, says hormonal contraception, including oral pills, will allow a woman to train and compete at a consistent level — but that level will invariably be below her potential peak.

She believes women perform better when their bodies feed off their natural supplies of hormones — oestrogen before ovulation and progesterone after ovulation.

“When one starts using a hormonal contraceptive the normal healthy cycle stops working as it should and starts working in an unnatural, arrhythmic way,” says Slattery, a Justisse holistic reproductive health practitioner who advocates a natural contraceptive method called fertility awareness, which has a 99.6% effectiveness rate.

“You’re giving a healthy functioning body a drug to not function properly . . . as a healthy person would you go for chemotherapy?"

Women on natural cycles will struggle to perform efficiently during menstruation and a couple of days prior to that, although Slattery believes a strong mental approach can bridge the gap.

For her research Slattery inter- viewed 64 sportswomen, from first team school to international level, including several Olympians.

Of those who had quit before 25, she found the most common reasons were decreased motivation (55%) and coach problems (43%).

“The coach (needs) to understand that girls and women will have times in their cycles that they cannot perform and not to put hectic training sessions when their bodies are too physically exhausted to perform.

“How demotivating is it for an ath- lete who gets given an incredibly hard session when menstruating and they cannot reach what is required, then the coach brings down the athlete emotionally as well?”

Women on the pill also risk being demotivated if they are unable to improve beyond a certain level.

“Sports coaches need to be much more than a person who delivers the sports programme to the athlete, they need to develop a relationship with the athlete.”

Slattery’s research also found that of the women who had quit sport, 62% had experienced parental pressures compared to 17% of the women who were still competing.