Greater ‘knowledge and awareness’ needed about periods for women in sport – The Period Panel

dr Emma Ross has called for more resources and education to assess the effects of periods on women in sport.

Ross – the former head of physiology at the English Institute of Sport, who specializes in improving sport for women and girls – says more money needs to go into research and also into training coaches to bring “great knowledge and to create awareness around the topic.

“Research is expensive,” she told The Period Panel with Eurosport’s Orla Chennaoui, England soccer player Jodie Taylor and track and field athlete Jazmin Sawyers of Team GB. The full discussion will be broadcast on Sunday.

“If you do it on women, you have to take the menstrual cycle into account. And that changes from week to week. In the male body, you know, they still have a hormonal rhythm, everyone has hormones, everyone is hormonal, but in men it’s more of a 24-hour rhythm than a monthly rhythm. And that means, my goodness, we either have to take all of these women at the same time of their cycle and test them for the research question that we have.

“Or we have to test them four times over the course of the cycle to understand different phases. And as you say, that’s going to be time consuming and expensive. But that’s no excuse. You know, we have a brilliant reputation for research in this country, you know, we take care of cancer and we don’t say, ‘Oh, it’s a bit complicated and expensive, we don’t go there.’ We just say, “Wow, it’s complicated. It’s expensive. Let’s go after him’.

“I think women’s organs have been excluded. And now is the time to prioritize the issue so that it gets adequate funding. But the nature of the gap between knowledge and action is also important.”

“So we have enough information to do better. We’ll have to wait until there’s more really good research. And there are some brilliant studies being done across the country.”

“But we also have to make the best of what we have now. And we don’t make the best of knowing how to reduce the risk of cruciate ligament injuries in women. We don’t use the information we have about menstruation.” Cycling and putting it in the hands of athletes for them to use. And that depends on the coaching education, that depends on how much the coach who supports these guys day in and day out knows about women’s bodies.

“And if it’s a man who hasn’t had a lived experience, and if it’s a man who’s worked in men’s sport before, who’s been through that, then maybe he got a degree in exercise science and then Although they trained as coaches, they were never taught anything about women’s bodies at any point in their journey. Indeed, this was and is still being overlooked.

“We have to change that, but we have to start at the level of coach education. You know, we have to start at the federation level. So the sports are saying, ‘Oh yeah, everybody in this sport, everybody in women’s football, everybody in women’s sport needs to know more and you’re seeing better trained physical therapists, doctors, sports scientists, coaches and athletes.

“Let’s raise the bar of knowledge and awareness here so that as we get more research we can use it because one of the biggest barriers to having these great conversations about your menstrual cycle experiences is your confidence as an athlete.” hangs on on the person’s ability to accept that and not be embarrassed or embarrassed to judge it.”

Arsenal striker Taylor says it was difficult for her to predict the impact the timeframes would have on her ability to play her best.

“My period has really affected me over the years without really knowing it. And it wasn’t until I gained more knowledge and understanding about periods and different cycles that I realized how much she was affecting me. So for me it wasn’t so much about menstrual symptoms.” During my period, it was the time before that that really impacted how hard I could train and my recovery and inflammation in my body.

“A few years ago I had a really bad Achilles tendon injury and at any given time of the month my Achilles tendon would get really restless and irritated and I didn’t know what it was until I knew more about my period. And it happened the week before my period.

“I think we all also pay attention to symptoms like the start of the match day. But on the first day of my period I get really bad cramps and bloated which affects my eating intake because I no longer have an appetite and I’m not hungry.

“So obviously this is having a knock-on effect on my diet and recovery. But I just have to say how brave it is that you come out and talk about it. Because I don’t think I know anyone… I’ve had teammates who have been really debilitated by their periods but will never back down or say anything about it. They just suffer in silence.”

Taylor believes periods are still a taboo subject in football.

She said: “I think it’s being talked about more but it’s still taboo. And I think it’s something that we all need to move beyond and hopefully talk about – and I’ve had other teammates who have spoken out in the media.” “Having talked about it – will help. But I think in a team environment, people feel a little bit more comfortable talking about it with medical professionals and sports scientists. But I don’t think it’s at the level where people can openly say, ‘You can’t play today’.”

Sawyers agrees that more research is needed to help athletes better manage their performance.

“To me, the problem seems to be that research isn’t catching up fast enough with how much we seem to want to talk about it,” she said.

“At least in my world, where I talk about it a lot, there’s some research, but it seems kind of contradictory and there’s no clear answer.”

“If I had tracked my cycle since I was a teenager and been aware of how I was feeling each week versus the previous month, I probably could have said, ‘Hey, I know I’m going to feel.’ The week of my period it gets worse, I know my back will hurt, I know my tendons will be more prone to injury because that’s how I’ve experienced it personally.”

“I could push that forward in my career. But when there’s no consciousness at that lower level, people don’t notice as much.”

Chennaoui added: “In your book, Emma, ​​you cite the fact that only 6% of research in exercise science is done exclusively on women, and of that 6%, only 8% is considered good enough to be reliable.” to be.”

“I suck at math, but 8% of 6% is vanishingly small.”