July: “so being nice to women isn’t enough?”

Plus breast injury, fasting and Reading RIP

1. Working Well

From Sheffield to Hamburg, Die Body Bible fur Frauen

Baz came back buzzing from her 2x2x2 at Technogym’s flagship conference in Sheffield. She spoke at double speed on two days for two hours atime – bringing gym owners and pros up to speed on the why driving our mission.

Among loads of highlights (Technogym really knows how to put on a conference), several male PTs and gym managers reported into Baz that the penny has dropped. They’re going back to their clubs to do things differently.

“So just being nice to women isn’t enough” said one. No sir …

Relatedly, Dr Emma was in Germany to address over 400 Euro delegates at the Hamburg Sports Summit. Her main stage keynote (Is Women’s Sport Built on Foundations of Sand or Stone?) noted that the mega growth of women’s sport is built on athletes – so what happens if we fail to care for them?

Tech advances promise a lot but without fundamental knowledge it’s as Emma says. It’s like giving your granny an iPhone. Anyway, highlights aplenty but holding the German language version of The Female Body Bible is up there.

With Baz in Britain and Emma on the continent, Dr Bella went international. She joined PT influencer Kayla Itsines for her Sweat Daily podcast to talk hormones. Question one: what even is a hormone? Find out here.

2. The World at Well

Reading a cautionary tale

A recent LinkedIn article / wake-up call by Maggie Murphy, former CEO at Lewes Football Club, really caught the eye.

To recap: in late June, Reading FC told the FA they wouldn’t be renewing their women’s team license, pulling the club down several leagues and leaving dozens of players, staff and pathway prospects in jobless limbo.

Maggie took to LinkedIn to urge that other women’s teams reconcile demands for progress with cost. ‘This is the collective responsibility of all of us who demand women’s football to run before we can buy our own shoes,’ she wrote.

The paradigm, now, is that women’s teams are hugely dependent on their men’s team to subsidise growth and, a la Reading, this is much too fragile to sustain. Further, women’s teams unaffiliated with a men’s team are on the financial back foot from the get-go.

‘Unless we can make boring structural changes,’ she wrote, ‘I don’t see Reading’s story being the last.’ Read more.

3. First of their kind

TWHQ courses get CIMSPA nod of approval

We’re pleased to announce that all four courses in our Female Body series have now been officially CIMSPA-accredited. This makes our courses unique in the market, and puts something of a fullstop onto several years of work …

Quick recap, through 2022 and 2023 we helped CIMSPA — the Chartered Institute for the Management of Sport and Physical Activity (AKA the people in charge of the sport curriculum) — to write new era guidelines and set a new standard for training girls and women. Prior to, no such standard existed.

TWHQ have since mapped all four Female Body courses to that new standard, and we’re looking forward to ushering in that promised new era.

We’re here to tell the real story of the female body. We’re here to help individuals, teams, coaches and organisations see, know and train the female body; to optimise it as it is and not as it isn’t.

4. Here Comes the Science Bit

Breast injury in rugby: overlooked and underreported

Recently published in the European Journal of Sport Science, new research led by Portsmouth Uni’s Joanna Wakefield-Scurr investigates breast health issues in women’s rugby.

In a high octane, impact sport involving players with (usually) above average body and breast mass – the conclusions are sadly predictable. Breast injuries in rugby are common. They’re also under-reported and largely overlooked.

Authors first investigate the lack of data on breast health injuries, and then assess gaps in medical consensus on breast injuries in sport. The paper notes that breast injuries are commonly filed only as injuries, and this combined with a lack of surveillance processes, equals problems.

These conclusions square with 2020 research into football where, staffers assumed 5% of players had experienced breast injuries when 58% in fact had.

Besides calling for more research the authors recommend establishing appropriate breast injury care pathways for players. Agree.

5. Medical BS

Can fasting ever work?

Dr Bella says: Straight up – yes it can. I see the impact of the obesity epidemic in my surgery every day. Some situations are really desperate.

Is fasting the ideal solution – no. But I have seen it help some sufferers like a jumpstart; a way to control snacking; lose weight; fight symptoms …

It comes down to the individual and we need to be wary of the risks. Evidence pro-fasting is thin. But even so, watching desperate folks go from hopeless to hopeful due to 5:2 or 16:8 can be a rare treat for a tired GP.

Controversial – maybe. But I’m not ready to take fasting off the table.