By Jess Piasecki, Nottingham Trent University, Georgie Bruinvels, Orreco Ltd., and Lucy Lomax, sports journalist
Female physiology encompasses all physiological mechanisms in relation to a female. Females are not small men, and whilst some physiological mechanisms are very similar between sexes, the majority of mechanisms operate in a different manner, often resulting in alternative outcomes.
For example, a number studies have shown that the fatigability of muscles varies within men and women, as do the changes in muscle fibre type with age (Hunter et al., 2004a; Hunter et al., 2004b) and possibility of neuromuscular differences between males and females (Andsell., 2019).
More commonly known is that the hormones in men and women are very different, particularly in regards to the prominent sex hormones, biological females have a monthly cyclical pattern of sex hormones known as the menstrual cycle, whereas males, it is thought, have more of a continual pattern of hormones being released.
Within research females have more often been over-looked, compared to their male counter parts. Particularly in human physiology, most studies omit females and very rarely do studies include both male and female participants. O’Halloran (2020) clearly highlighted this with his recent editorial piece, within the past year (2019) still only 20% of all human studies used a male only cohort and even more significant was the fact that there were only 7 original research studies focusing primarily on female populations.
Similarly, women in sport are often a second thought in comparison to males; unequal pay and unequal opportunities within sports have been rife over decades and are still an issue to date. Particularly, with the recent pandemic such in equalities have been further highlighted with disparities in furlough pay, the cancellation of the women’s football league but not the men’s, and return to play for men’s sports yet not for women (Bowes, 2020, Elite female athletes’ experiences of the COVID-19).
Perhaps even more significant is that the research around the menstrual cycle and contraceptives, used by half of all females, is very equivocal due to the lack of consistent methodologies and high-quality studies that can provide such detailed information. Identifying specific points across the cycle accurately can be time consuming and costly, meaning females are often omitted or methods become slightly less stringent.
For several years, prior to the launch of our podcast, the team has been heavily involved in all things female physiology and women in sport.
Georgie Bruinvels is an exercise research scientist working at Orreco Ltd. Georgie completed her PhD on the menstrual cycle with a particular focus on heavy menstrual bleeding. Her current work involves dealing with a range of female athletes from multiple sports and implementing an array of sport science methods to ensure the athlete can achieve the most optimum performance.
Lucy Lomax is a sports journalist with a particular interest in women’s sport, Lucy has previously written and commentated for women’s rugby and football teams and is passionate about the promotion of female sports.
And I, Jess Piasecki, am an exercise physiologist with research interests in female physiology. I have previously delivered a number of workshops and written numerous articles on the female athlete triad and Relative Energy Deficiency-Sport (RED-S) including about with my own experiences of RED-S and the menstrual cycle as a female athlete (see relevant episode here).
The COVID-19 lockdown gave us the opportunity and momentum to put the wheels in motion for our podcast. With support from The Physiological Society’s Outreach Grant we were able to launch our first series in March, diving head-first into the deep end of the podcast world.
The Females Athlete Podcast is a knowledge-sharing platform that provides everyone with the benefit of education and empowerment, by opening up the conversation and spreading knowledge and understanding of female physiology.
Our core values are to ensure openness, equality and empowerment amongst all of our listeners. Whilst the name “Female Athlete Podcast” may seem as though our target is quite niche, we envisage the word “athlete’” to cover anyone who exercises or interesting in exercise, no matter what their level, and it is our hope that anyone who wishes to learn more about such topics will listen and educate themselves, whoever they are.
We encourage discussion and raise awareness on topics such as the menstrual cycle, contraceptives, menopause and pregnancy. There are opportunities for listeners to learn and ask questions. We have created a community for sharing, communicating and supporting one another amongst listeners, increasing the exposure and awareness of topics that can often be overlooked and undervalued in their importance for females.
Our social media channels (Twitter: @female_pod; Instagram: femaleathletepod) have been at the heart of developing our podcast community and support networks. We have 1,780 Instagram and 680 Twitter followers which in total through our posts, audio clips and videos mean we regularly reach almost 2,500 people who have chosen to follow our accounts.
To date the podcast has received over 20,000 total downloads with our most downloaded episode “Back to Basics: A ‘normal’ menstrual cycle and why we need to open up the conversation” recording 2,050 downloads with our second-most downloaded episode ‘Mapping your menstrual cycle” receiving 1,800 downloads to date. Episodes around contraception and iron deficiency in females has received 1,658 and 1,505 downloads respectively. The podcast has also been listened to in 6 different continents around the world and 70 different countries with our download percentages reading UK (66%), US (9%), Australia (6%), and Ireland (3%).
From our successful series one we now head into series 2 in which we hope to cover many more topics such as the menstrual cycle and endurance sports, pregnancy and exercise, sex differences in research and hydration for females. We have esteemed researchers, applied scientists and professional athletes as guests on each episode, sharing their insights and first-hand experiences on the subject area. We also envisage the podcast to be used as an educational tool, at undergraduate and post graduate levels, alongside which we aim to develop more educational materials and a podcast website.
The launch of this podcast has received significant traction, more so than we ever envisaged. We would not be able to develop such a platform without the help and support of The Physiological Society through their Outreach Grants, for that we will always be eternally grateful. We hope that other physiologists are able to disseminate and raise awareness of their own topics of interest and will support our podcasts by listening and downloading!
Please note that all views expressed on The Physiological Society’s blog reflect those of the author(s) and not of The Society.
References
- Ansdell, P. Brownstein, CG. Skarabot, J. Hicks, KM. Howatson, G. Thomas, K. Hunter, S. Goodall, S. (2019). Sex differences in fatigability and recovery relative to the intensity-duration relationship. Journal of Physiology.
- Bowes, A., Lomax, L. and Piasecki, J. , 2020. The impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on elite sportswomen. Managing Sport and Leisure.
- Hunter, S. Critchlow, A. Shin, I.S. Enoka, R (2004a) Men are more fatigable than strength-matched women when performing intermittent submaximal contractions. J Appl Physiol (1985).
- Hunter, S. Critchlow, A. Enoka, R (2004b) Influence of aging on sex differences in muscle fatigability. J Appl Physiol (1985).
- O’Halloran, K (2020). Mind the gap: widening the demographic to establish new norms in human physiology. Editorial, The Journal of Physiology