Doctor calls for focus on menstruation in women’s training
Published:Monday | November 9, 2020 | 12:12 AMDaniel Wheeler/Staff Reporter
National senior women’s football team physician Dr Gillian Lawrence says that an appreciation and adoption of technology is important to developing training methods catered to female athletes around their menstrual cycles to optimise their performance.
Lawrence was speaking at the inaugural Women’s Health and Athletic Performance Forum on Saturday, which discussed topics relating to preparing female athletes for competition and how coaches and administrators could safeguard women’s health in sports.
Chelsea Women’s Football team became the first club in the world to tailor its players training regimens around their menstrual cycles. The players are encouraged to download an app that monitors all four phases of their cycle: menstruation, pre-ovulation, ovulation, and pre-menstruation. With the players’ consent, the information is shared with the club.
Lawrence says that with the emergence of technologies such as fit bands that are tailored to women, it is important for such data to be constantly monitored and is integral in the modern-day assessment of the female athlete.
“Whether it’s a singular sport or it’s a team sport, the female athlete is important, and those sorts of things have to be tracked,” Lawrence said. We see a lot of athletes that wear these bras that monitor everything, and a part of those apps actually have you track the menstrual cycle.”
She said that such measures have been incorporated into the Reggae Girlz’s programme, with questionnaires ranging from how well they have slept to how they are feeling during a partial phase in their cycle.
Chelsea Women’s FC manager, Emma Hayes, who came up with the programme, told English newspaper The Independent on February 14 that the performance for women players was not maximised because the training was similar to the men’s team’s. She hopes that such measures will become the norm for all clubs globally.
“These players are going to be the first generation of women who are well educated about their menstrual cycle, and they will spread that knowledge as far as they possibly can, and we hope that becomes a culture within every football club in the world,” Hayes said.
Excelsior High School track coach Michael Vassell, a member of the panel on Saturday, said that he is interested in incorporating the technology, which he believes would benefit how he prepares his athletes in the future.