November: how’s your Norwegian?

Olympiatoppen, vaginal microbiomes and other oddly words

1. Working Well

From Oslo to Edinburgh it’s always back to her

Dr Emma went to Oslo last week for the Olympiatoppen Conference, an annual open gathering of Norway’s Olympic Committee.

This year’s focus was “the female athlete”, and Emma presented TWHQ insights to trainers and coaches from various regions and sporting disciplines. 

Perhaps most interesting, the event showed how disparate sports bodies in the Nordics are keen to share and swap knowledge with one another in order to raise the bar more generally in athlete health and wellbeing.

Not long ago, sports bodies kept insights quiet to get an edge in performance and talent recruitment so it’s refreshing to see a new spirit of collaboration.

Speaking of which …

Earlier this year we headed to the Scottish Parliament to relay our experience in female health education – the status quo, the needs and the challenges.

The resulting ‘Female participation in sport and physical activity‘ report is a strong presentation of the state of play, made all the better from contributions from experts like Baz:

“Until we educate the people who look after girls about female health … it will not matter how much we promote sport in order to get girls in, we will still see a gender gap in female participation and performance.”

2. The World at Well

Every vagina needs one

We were going to talk on the new sports (lacrosse, cricket, baseball, squash and flag football) entering the Olympics, but why not instead look forward to a Daye when there’s one of these in every vagina …

Motivated by her own painful periods, CEO Valentina and the Daye team put trusty old tampons at the heart of a process to screen the health of the vaginal microbiome. The resulting information helps women to understand the potential risk of infections, STIs, and even fertility issues.

The approach is backed by science and supported by experts and clinicians … just the way we like it.

3. Menopause – now it’s your turn

Send your voice notes and sign up for Wednesday 8th November

Baz and Dr Bella are gearing up for the Stronger, Fitter, Healthier Menopause webinar, coming to you live at 7.30pm on Wednesday 8th November.

We’ll be answering your questions, playing your stories and hearing your experiences. At TWHQ we’ve spent a month talking menopause – now it’s your turn. 

So sign up now, tell us where you’re at and get ready for the menopause you need to know about.

4. Here Comes the Science Bit

Cycle-phase based strength training in ACL injury recovery

(TL;DR) strength training based on cycle phase may speed ACL return

New research from Dr Stacy “women are not small men” Sims and team offers a solid and very topical look into existing evidence for and against mapping strength training to a woman’s menstrual cycle phase.

The paper first presents a good review of existing literature, and reminds us that research, though not conclusive, generally suggests follicular-phase strength training can enhance strength and lean mass gain while arresting some cycle-related pain. Meanwhile, luteal-phase resistance training is touted as a way for underweight women to bank extra strength gains.

But what we like about this paper is the authors’ focus on follicular-phase strength training which, though not an always-thing, could be advantageous at specific, strategic times, such as returning to match-fitness for women post-ACL reconstruction. This paper nicely opens the door for further such study.

5. Medical BS

“No periods is the optimum for very active women – right?”

Dr Bella says: No. 

Some sporting cultures promote the loss of the menstrual cycle as optimum. It’s not. The cycle isn’t a switch to be turned off and on – deactivating it takes a tremendous physical and psychological toll on a woman, and it also robs her of a key marker of her general health. 

This piece of sporting culture is deep-set and we need to right the myth. Loss of the cycle isn’t good. Returning it to full operation can be a long and challenging process that could even pose significant fertility issues.