Article in Guardian. Sport and periods.

[OhDear2200]

It’s as if a persons sex is important?

www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jul/16/sport-science-body-to-track-female-athletes-hormonal-changes-linked-to-menstruation

Seriously?

Testing women for menstrual oestrogen, but transwomen are still allowed far higher levels of teetering than any XX women.

It's like, ooohhhh if we look at testosterone (ignoring the permanent effects of puberty of course) in transwomen, then women should equally be analysed to minute detail about their hormones.

As though news about testosterone is new.

Interested to know the deep funding of this and who suggested it. Maybe I'm suspicious.

Testosterone

The current iteration of the Guardian couldn't find its arse with both hands.

Might help Eddie Izzard improve running time

I haven't read the full article as CBA to register but in previous studies the main "performance" factor is increased vulnerability to injury (concussion and ligaments, especially knees) so awareness of the effects is massively overdue.

Female athletes?

Girls?

For this topic they should be using menstruators.

Come on guardian put your money where your mouth is.

Hypocrites.

Having said that the actual topic is really interesting and I hope that the research yields new info that can be used to assist athletes, and maybe everyone else.

Unless the sports bodies decide they all need to go on the pill.... Wouldn't put it past them (realist). Unless they aren't allowed to be on the pill of course.

I'm just cynical

A lot of athletes make decisions based on period management convenience - lots of sports have kit that is awkward when on (swimming, anything with white shorts/trousers). Unfortunately I did not cope with norethistazone (sp) and had to just multi layer protection in my competitive days even when I knew I'd be on at the wrong time for a major competition...

Hesitates before plunging into the chat, as a mother of a sporty teen. There are too many girls that overtrain/slim to achieve a "desirable" weight/physique and overlook the fact that their periods stop. That's not great for osteoporosis in the middle ages.

Period tracking (on a calendar, not testing) is becoming a bit of a thing in my daughter's sport (but she does have a female coach). As much as anything it is about minimising the risk of injury through overtraining and knowing when it is best to try to train hard.

Have a look at the Jennis App (I baulked at paying £14.99/month, but I might suggest we trial it after the summer hols).
This is a lightweight article about it:

www.vogue.co.uk/beauty/article/jennis-cyclemapping

"Some women also experience symptoms related to their menstrual cycle such as low energy, pain or bloating. According to one recent study of female rugby players, 93% of them reported cycle-related symptoms, and 67% thought these affected their athletic performance.

Even so, the menstrual cycle is among the least studied aspects of human biology. Last year, Chelsea Women became the first football club in the world to start tailoring its players’ training to their menstrual cycles, although there’s little evidence that this is effective.

There’s a very thin layer of evidence to suggest that there may be ways in which you can manipulate training based on where someone is in their menstrual cycle. The problem is that if you’re not measuring the hormones, you don’t actually know what’s happening. Just because you have a normal cycle length, doesn’t mean that your hormones are behaving in a normal fashion,"

but transwomen are still allowed far higher levels of teetering than any XX women
That’ll be because they wear high heels to look ‘feminine’ :)