Episode #22 "Unlocking Peak Performance: Understanding Female Athletes, Menstrual Health, and Longevity in Sport"

In this episode, we dive into the unique world of female athletes with Esther Goldsmith, an expert in sports science, and female physiology. 

With a passion for educating athletes and coaches, Esther unpacks the critical role of the menstrual cycle in athletic performance, how to optimise training around it, and strategies for fostering health and longevity in sport.

Drawing from her experience working with athletes, and her own Ultra-running experiences Esther shares insights into the challenges female athletes face, and how personalised approaches can unlock their true potential. 

We’ll explore practical tips for tracking the menstrual cycle, and the importance of addressing issues like RED-S to ensure long-term health.

Whether you’re an athlete, coach, or someone passionate about breaking barriers in sports science, this episode is packed with actionable advice, and expert perspectives to help female athletes thrive.

Tune in for an inspiring conversation that bridges science, health, and performance!

Follow Esther on Instagram  https://www.instagram.com/esthergoldsmith/
Or on Twitter https://x.com/egoldsmithphys

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Transcript

[Music] hi I'm Celia boothman founder of LTR coaching and I'd like to welcome you to the inspired triathletes podcast where I'll be bringing you stories from female triathletes and taking on topics that are important to women in the

sport hi and welcome to today's episode today I'm here with Esther Goldsmith from Sports Wales and she's going to talk to us a lot about females in sport and our unique challenges things about our physiology that can help or hinder Us and how we can work with that to become the best that we can be um so we're going to talk a little bit about your background first of all so what is it that you do now we'll start with that that's one I don't want to overwhelm you with questions so that's the first one yeah I tend to go on tangent so yeah me too well thanks for having me first of all um so yeah I'm a physiologist I work at sport Wales um so I work within the um like high performance Institute sport Wales um but we I guess we have a kind of a focus on development athletes as well so um a lots of what we do is trying to work with those who are on like Pathways in sports so that they can achieve their potential whether that's in the sport and they choose to do that as a senior or in their life in the future so we're setting them up I guess for Success um I do quite a wide range of things um I think like the with it's longer on just physiology being just kind of measuring people's lactates and that's all we did um so I do a lot of work um with various different sports about like training kind of smart and how you can do that and how um coach can use data to inform their training but then a large part of my job is around female athletes so um I work with lots of sports um both with coaches and with athletes um mostly trying to educate them on kind of just why we need to treat females like females and we might need some specific considerations around that um and yeah just getting that conversation started um there's there's a whole range of things that you can do and we can do and so with some individual athletes I might work kind of on a higher level around like symptom management and like really paying attention to mental cycles for example but sometimes it's like okay you need to make sure that you've got a girl's bathroom in your setup you know so it it's a really wide range of of things but yeah it's basically how we can support female athletes better yeah no that sounds amazing and so have you had any resistance to that kind of conversation yeah I think it's a hard one um particularly when things are going well for sports so if I don't know a female athlete might be performing well or a female team they're like well we're doing well like why should we change anything um that can often be hard um and I find that even though I often come at it with a health point of view from a health point of view um actually trying to kind of sell female athlete Health as a perform thing um usually works better because ultimately lots of people care mostly about performance so yeah yeah so it's like doesn't matter about health so much yeah exactly but then you've got the longevity in sport haven't you that you have to consider as well and if you're not healthy you're not you're just GNA break like and I think that's what we're trying to really encourage I guess that's why we're working with development athletes so that they they learn what they need to now they don't they don't have to make the mistakes that some people have beening yeah and I think those mistakes have been being made and we have seen that now like with women in sport and so you've at least you've got that a bit of evidence to back you maybe before you know that's probably why it's sort of starting to come out now is that we are seeing what happens if you ignore that stuff and also kind of thinking well actually we can do a little bit better for women as well you know we haven't really thought about it we didn't used to think about it at all really no there's so many sports that like have this history of training males if you look at like the professional sport in females it's only like a hundred years old and so yeah we need to that's one of the reasons why we need to put more energy in that because we don't have the same training history yeah definitely and you do you run as well don't you and what else do you do you that's so you're Pilates instructor yeah I'm Pat instructor um I love running um if I had my own way I do like I I've done a few Ultras and that's like Trail Ultras is my favourite kind of thing I've I've dialled down a little bit recently just fitting training for ultras in is not necessarily conducive to having a to to having a married life to having another job like just put it in um uh yeah I teach Bates which is called um and I think that's that's mostly you've got a Dan a dancing background isn't there yeah so I dreamed as a dancer I guess that's where um I kind of got into sport so I as a dancer until I was 21 and could have gone on to do it professionally but um it kind of broke me um right which I guess there are often similarities in lots of other in lots of sports when you get to that age age um it makes or breaks you and I um I just decided I didn't want that for myself anymore um and I but I think that's one of the reasons that's left to me led to this job is I really want to give people the opportunity to not experience that to experience something else have a positive experience um so that they they continue because there's always that part of me that's like oh what if I had stayed but um yeah yeah you know it is what yeah that's interesting because I I I was going to ask that whether that was that was what led you into you know going down that rout route because I remember when I was younger I was into cross country running and I was quite good at at running and then I sort of hit a bit of a like low point when I hit puberty I started getting a bit slower and all the other girls were getting faster but they didn't have periods and I was like well if I want to be successful in running I have to be unhealthy so that in my mind it was like I can't carry on you know running competitively because that means I have to be unhealthy and I didn't want to be unhealthy so I sort of gave up I was like I don't want to do it anymore because I'm getting slower I don't want to be unhealthy and so I just stopped for quite a long time and took it went back into it later so it's interesting that you say that because I can definitely relate to that idea of like if you have to want to be successful you have to ruin your body but it doesn't have to be like that does it really it doesn't no it's interesting like I'm it's interesting you chose to go down the healthy route because I think lots of people don't um and actually I've just uh about a year ago worked with an athlete a little bit who was feeling exactly the same as you so she um was a triathlete but actually running was her kind of main passion um and she's going through puberty and finding that she was getting slower and feeling really kind of um disgruntled that she was getting slower and felt that it was as a result of her putting on weight so she came looking for support to how to lose weight and we were like no like you're growing like this is like a natural sign of puberty and it it is a really hard time for girls particularly because boys tend to get faster and stronger and girls don't and it kind of dips or plateaus before it then picks up again in kind of late adolescence early 20s um so it's it's really hard but I think we were able to give her enough encouragement that meant that she kind of stuck with it and um he's still running which is amazing but yeah so many people don't and so many girls drop out of sport at that time because they feel like they're getting worse or they're embarrassed or yeah so many other reasons yeah that's exactly what it was like I'm putting on weight and my mom was like it's normal for you to put on weight you know you'll lose it again it's you know and there was all that conversation and I think she was probably most you know the main reason I didn't want to push myself because she was always like stay healthy stay healthy that's amazing which is great but it me I stop running yeah because I did but I did other stuff as well so it's not the end of the world but sometimes I think oh it was you know I I was fairly talented I could have pushed harder and been more competitive when I was younger but it felt like it was a choice between health or or competing comp which is sad yeah it should yeah it is because it shouldn't be you should be able to have both really and it's like you being able to support that athlete and saying it's okay and get her through that time because it is you feel really vulnerable when you're that age as well it's difficult you know I've got 15-year-old son and he's just like

you know and I think about me at that age I was like yeah totally different and I we do climbing competitions and you can see the girls and they're getting heavy you know they're just some of them are still lean and you know just really strong and others you can see they're putting on weight and it's such a massive difference between them whereas the boys are just all kind of like getting stronger and stronger T like you know yeah it's hard to tell yeah I think it is quite hard at that that age well it's there's a lot of things we've got our challenges but they're good exactly they sort of like help build us into complete athletes really I think yeah so you talked a little bit about how you work with coaches and kind of sports professionals so if we're like how important do you think it is you said you work with men you know sometimes it's with the menstrual cycle and other times it's with other things how important do you think it is to sort of track our menstrual cycle or be aware of it in any way like if you're not doing it with a female athlete and you're not having a conversation about whether they're meeting regularly if you know that they're not on contraception like you're not doing that you're doing them a disservice I feel like it's quite a blunt thing to say but um I really feel quite strongly that that's true like we know a having a regular cycle is a sign of health is a sign that someone's body is um ready to go it's got enough energy and therefore it's going to adapt to training if you're a coach and you care about and you know you and your athlete care about performance and you're not asking them whether they have a regular cycle and you're you're constantly setting them training but they're not adapting to it well then if they're they're probably not having a regular cycle because they don't have the energy to adapt so um the two go hand in hand um and then if you if they are having a regular cycle but they're having symptoms that can affect them then you also need to know about that that's major it's not we're not talking about like minimal gains we're not talking about one percenters we're talking like 50% like um I think it's like 90% around there depending on what paper you look at are females experience symptoms that are negative associated with the m recycle if you don't know that about that as a coach then that like that that can affect their training um and that could affect their competition it how they feel so yeah I think tracking is like really important what you do with that data is kind of up to you and um it can be daunting as a coach because it's like oh my gosh there's this whole other world that I need to know about and do I have to change everything around it and the answer is no but the athlete and you need to have a conversation about it how they're feeling how can you help support that athlete better or maybe it's a team of athletes how can you support them better um so that they feel comfortable to share things with you um and to so that they you know can perform and be healthy and um yeah work work with you I guess yeah   so I used to work for um a cycle tracking app called fitter woman yeah and um we one of the pieces of feedback that we'd often get from uh from females was it was just so nice to know that what I was feeling wasn't made up like I would look at the app and be and it would be like oh you might be feeling a bit more tired or you might need some more sleep oh my gosh like okay and it it is it kind of validates how you're feeling um which is important like even if you don't you can't do anything to solve it even even just acknowledging and knowing that it there is a reason for why you're feeling like that um is is a really big step yeah it's huge and I think that's just like one thing that everybody can do and you know like tracking your cycle is something that you know I've been doing for a while and I'm always telling people track your cycle because it's really interesting people are like oh yeah I never thought about that it's amazing is it like one of my um old colleagues used to say like athletes prepare for everything but they don't prepare for their period like it's amazing like and I don't understand why well there's lots of like societal issues and like you know we have to cover it up and all of that which is probably why um but yeah like to know your own body like start listening to it like it's amazing how many people I now know who are like oh I know when I'm ovulating because they're paying attention to the signs of their body where is lots of people who aren't tracking like wouldn't be able to know that yeah yeah no it's it's and you know as an athlete you do want to be in touch with your body and be able to understand why it's doing what it's doing it can be a bit crazy sometimes yeah it can be but um it's that's the fun in games of being a female I know well I quite like you know I use fit a woman app and I use it with my clients actually to track so we do use it and there's quite a few other tools that are out there now that's made it a lot easier for people to do that when I was tracking my my cycle and it was regular it was nice because I knew where I was in my cycle and I could pin it down I was like okay I'm in my luteal I'm meant to be feeling a bit tired and a bit s you know I don't know I'm not so enthusiastic about training might not be able to perform quite as well and then my period would start and I'd feel like better this sort of relief um at the moment I'm like I don't know 60 days or something into a cycle and I you know I haven't had a period since 60 days ago and it's really bizarre because it's like I got used to tracking and knowing where I was and feeling quite at home and now I'm like should I be feeling tired now yeah I'm having to sort of go backwards now and I'm having to question again that sort of is it just me making it up or is it like is because I had a really busy week or is it my hormones going wild yeah yeah so it gets confusing again later so it's you know if you can track definitely do it because it's really helpful and it and it does give you that reassurance but because when you come out the other side of like or you starting your periods are starting to change it starts getting really confusing and and you're not really sure what's going on and when you know it's like almost I just want to have a period now so where I am really but it's kind of I don't know whether it's gonna happen yeah it's the roller coaster of uh Peri menopause yeah I know it's yeah and then again you're like am I making it up yeah okay so you talked a little bit about um energy deficiency and how that can impact you and stop you from having periods so what kind of things can people do to you know keep an eye on that and make sure that they don't get into that situation yeah that's a really good question so I mean there's quite a few reasons why someone might not have a period it's not always linked with just like um the total amount of energy they in a day um so we also know that it can be to do with timing throughout a day so if you spend ending a long period of time fasted um then that's a negative sign to your body it's basically your body saying oh I don't know when I'm next gonna get food and therefore I don't think it's the right time to have a baby right now that's kind of like really crude but that's like the kind of what your body's doing that's how it's evolved um so yeah it can be complete like caloric intake it can be like throughout the day it can be not having enough carbohydrates so we know under fuelling particularly with carbohydrate um can put your body on in this flight or fight mode which shuts down your menstrual cycles um we also know though that like excessive amounts of psychological stress um and kind of sleep disturbances so your circadian rhythm going all over the place so and that's often um shift workers um both of those two things can also affect your cycle like this because they're also signals to your body that there's a threat out there um because so you have high levels of cortisol that can shut down your hormonal system um so the things that to look and I guess also there are some people who might be fuelling well but they're really sensitive to the amount of training that they're doing and if training completely ramps up then that can also cause changes in your cycle so something else to be aware of um and then the science to look for so typically a m recycle this about 2 to 35 days in length kind of depends on which guidelines you're looking at but they're the ranges that I go with um if your cycle starts to become longer than 35 days or longer than your normal so say your normal cycle is 22 days in length if your cycle starts to elongate then that's a sign that your body probably hasn't ovulated or the ovulation has been delayed that's a sign that you're may be deficient in energy you're may be not feeling quite right um maybe you're overtraining maybe your stress Etc all of those things that I just talked about so that's like the first red flag um sometimes you cannot even realise that you're due on like I know so many so many athletes that you know they're so busy they're rushing around the place um they don't realise that actually they've missed a cycle anything longer than 90 days that's like alarm bells for me particularly um and we call that um secondary amenorrhea um and that's when your body is really unhappy basically um and it's a good idea to just check that with a doctor Medical Professional because it might be that there's something underline going on like that's gynaecological um but more often than not in our society um it's because it's something called secondary H hypothal oh my gosh I cannot say it hypothalamic amenorrhea um which is to do with your hypothalamus in your brain basically detecting this threat of lack of energy high stress um training so that that would be the science to look for and um and then in terms of like what to do it's kind of sit down and work out where you think you might you could do better um how have you been avoiding carbohydrates it's really easy to because that's what the mass media likes us wants to promote um as is doing fasted training which again is not a necessarily a good thing for females but if you're doing those then maybe you need to stop doing those and see if your body responds better yeah and does it take quite a long time to recover from that or can you it doesn't it in one cycle yeah like it kind of depends on how long you've not had a period for um and how kind of all in you're going um because I think it can be it's hard to change Behaviour if something becomes a habit we know that's really hard to change um so yeah I think it depends on those two things yeah I remember overhearing some female triathletes talking about this like at one point they were like oh yeah I cut out fat they'd cut out one of them had cut out fat from her diet great completely and she was like I haven't had a period for this long and I was thinking Yeah well yeah there's a reason and then someone else was saying yeah this H that happened to me when I did this and and she wanted to have a baby so she was like I think I'm GNA have to start you know eating properly so that I can I know and it's like why why I I guess we were told you know at one point you read all sorts of rubbish sometimes don't you it's just like not really helpful at all especially if you're an athlete it's even worse it it is fat is bad or whatever and it's like then have this fear of of eating it and or sugar is a devil I think yeah sugar now is the one isn't it the problem is like a lot of the research that these um headlines come from is that in sedentary men that's completely not therefore they're not the messages to be applied to very active females like but but the media blows it up and doesn't site the study or it's really hard also to have a critical appraisal of what you're consuming kind of subliminally on social media or any other Outlet so um yeah I think that's that would be my key message is like lots of research is not done on active females so yeah yeah definitely we need to keep an eye on that and sort of every time I read something now I've got a whole load of questions yeah or even just you know anything that comes up in the news I'm like okay but was it and yeah and I think we all need to be a lot more like that nowadays because there's just so much and it's all quick sort of like sensationalist you know do this do that and you know it's very confusing now for people to really confusing hard enough you know when back when I was younger but now it's just crazy and you have to be able to filter and and use some kind of critical thinking really as well in that in that situation yeah you've got there so with the um your ultra running I'm assuming that's quite a challenge with consuming enough carbohydrates how do you go about that yeah yeah it's definitely being learning curve um I think I it was funny I was in um I was in my office I did the Cardiff half this year um and one of my colleagues was also doing it and he um he's a strength and conditioning coach and he follows the rule book by to the tea and he was telling me about how many how many carbs he was trying to consume like three days before and he like measuring it out he was like yeah I need to get like another two I need like 700 all together and and he was then he was like oh so what do you do before your races and I was like oh a bit more C I'm not that person that's going to do that to my food or like really think about the numbers but um I think some of the key things I I've I mean when I was probably about 20 to 24 before I got into this job I did faster training 100% I did it's easier I don't want to eat in the morning like I can get up do some exercise and then I'll have breakfast um but since like learning more about the female body and understanding that that's like definitely a noo um uh so that for ultra running really important particularly if you're going out for like 10 miles of a training um and then I think like liquids have been really useful because sometimes you don't get those hunger cues particularly when you're running two hours like you don't always feel hungry you might feel a bit sick sometimes or like you're just hunger cues and messed up um so and triathletes definitely I experienced that because they do so many hours of training um so having like liquid is much easier um like a smoothie with some some kind of source of protein in it um great protein and carb and so I found I've definitely found that um easier and then also just like eating sweets or like things that I really enjoy that's a really good way to get carbs in um yeah and it doesn't fill you up you know like having a handful of Harry bow isn't going to make you feel full but actually that's increasing carbohydrate yeah definitely so faster training for females why is that such a no no that's like the research is is there for that isn't it it's not there for everything it's kind of like some but I'm going off now so for females particularly so you have to think males um have a different sensitivity to things like this but for females um basically when you are awake in the morning early morning your cortisol levels are quite high they drop throughout the day but they're quite high in the morning they Peak then and if you're doing fasted training that is another cortisol Spike on top of that so they're already quite high and then you don't have any food and you go out to exercise and that is another threat to your body because it's like oh it's a it's a stress I guess your body's working hard so your cortisol levels increase as a result of that that and that can almost like females almost have a threshold and if females cortisol is too high consistently then that can send messages to your hypothalamus in your brain to say I'm GNA like I think things need to stop in terms of hormones because we need to save energy not sure what's coming here but it's a stressful situation and let's save energy um by shutting down the M recycle so essentially that's why um it's not a good idea okay and then and when we're older as well like cortisol causes that inflammation that women get when they're older so again you know I tell older female athletes don't fast do fasted training because it is it's another like you say cortisol Spike and we've already got elevated cortisol yeah in that situation anyway so it kind of makes it worse I know um but it is hard like sometimes you have to get up early and put it in at times you don't you would necessarily choose to if you're going to train um but you just have something it doesn't have to be full meal you know I'm like have half a Banana at least you know gel like something that's easy to get in yeah yeah it doesn't I think sometimes people think they have to wait you know get up two hours before and full breakfast it's like no just eat some just to get your sugar levels exactly yeah yeah so with the menstrual cycle are there any like patterns to I know everybody's different and everyone's going to experience things differently but can you just outline what generally happens to women throughout their cycle and how it affects their training yeah for sure um yes I guess that is the biggest caveat is that like everyone is individual and every individual will also have cycles that are different um there's so much so there's inter and intra variation um but so TP the cycle starts with day one of bleeding so day one of your period is first day of the cycle and then that can last anywhere between three to eight days um and for some people that's really heavy some people it's light um and we know that if you're heavier then you're more prone to being dehydrated and fatigued um and having kind of anaemia or iron loss deficiency an iron deficiency so a little like kind of note there just to check how heavy you are um and then some people on day one feel great it can be like the best day in the world because it's like oh your period's finally come or some people might not feel great it's kind of it's it's probably the phase I think is the most varied in terms of how people feel um and actually someone I was speaking to the other day was saying how hers has changed so she's gotten older so it used to be day one was when she felt great but actually now it's kind of day two day three um so yeah that's and that's why it's really like important to track so that you kind of you're aware of that or you're prepared um it is when your hormones are really low um so they're kind of at their lowest point in this this time of the cycle um and it you might feel tired um but again as I said you might have more energy um then after kind of bleeding stops that's when oestrogen levels start to pick up so um it's kind of the was known as a follicular phase um and progesterone stays low but um oestrogen elevates oestrogen is um associated with kind of increase in serotonin and dopamine release so um usually people feel pretty good in this phase um it might be something that like is completely just a week or so where you don't have to think about it um and actually yeah some of the the triathletes I was speaking to recently they were like yeah we get one day in a month where we feel good that would be that week yeah it's sad that they don't feel good the other time but um um some people can feel like appetite loss or something because oestrogen is linked with kind of stabilising of um your blood sugar levels um but obviously it's really important to still kind of fuel correctly and actually we know that in this phase if you make any kind of under fuelling uh instances um or situations where you're under fuelled then that can have a knock on effect on an ovulation because that's what's coming next so yeah um something to be aware of particularly um then after so the follicular phase ends with ovulation which is one day when an egg is released um from the ovaries and um some people actually have ovulation pain around this time um if you do it's nothing to be alarmed about but um some something like anti-inflammatory can probably help um most of the time because usually pain around the mro cycle is linked with an increase in inflammatory markers yeah um then after ovulation you enter the luteal phase which is when progesterone increases um and I did my mation around how this phase can have an effect on um your temp body temperature and potentially have an effect on like your running economy um because it increases like breathing rate and heart rate so progesterone is known as a thermogenic hormone so it um increases your core body temperature by about half a degree um if you're tracking on um or you use something like natural cycles which is um the like thermometer kind of contraceptive I wouldn't necessarily recommend it as a contraceptive it's not that's not my area my wheelhouse but it is really interesting to look because you measure your temperature every morning um but also if you have an aura ring or a wheat band They also measure measure your temperature and you should be able to see an increase in your body temperature at this time which is I I mean obviously I'm a science geek I like that sounds pretty interesting I like

them um and then I guess around this time um sometimes sleep disturbances can occur because of that increase in body temperature um training can be affected it kind of depends on who you are um but one thing that is really interesting is that progesterone is linked with protein muscle catabolism so the breakdown of protein um and protein in your muscles and so um I encourage particularly before like gym sessions I would encourage people to have protein before as well as after because you're elevating the amount of protein that's in your body so that there's like less opportunity for it to break down if that makes sense yeah that does make sense would that be similar like if you are in sort of param menopause you've got got more progesterone probably in your body and less oestrogen 100% and that'll be so then then you'd recommend more protein before and after in in that situation yeah well it's just making sure you do actually have protein before a lot of women don't have enough protein no and breakfast typically unless you're having like eggs it's really hard like eggs and yogurt are kind of the main you could have that together as well yeah um so I think like you know your boxed cereal or toast isn't going to cut it in terms of your protein requirements so um it's just making a conscious effort to have something beforehand um and knowing what works for you as well because for some people if they're going to go for a run they don't necessarily want to have dairy beforehand because that can make them feel sick I'm not one of those people but some people are um so it's just like knowing yeah working out what's right for your body yeah definitely so then that's kind of like the like three quarters um through your cycle yeah um and then the last phase is like the late luteal phase or premenstrual phase so that's typically when symptoms occur that's um it's when hormone levels decrease so um in the mid luteal phase your progesterone and oestrogen levels are high and then after that they fall quite rapidly um and that's quite a significant thing for your body to deal with um and as a result there's this increase in inflammatory markers and that can cause well we think that's one of the causes of mental cycle symptoms um the width so the withdrawal of hormone and the increase in inflammation so you might notice that you feel more tired you feel less motivated um you might feel more uncoordinated have like loss of balance brain fog like there's there's over 150 potential symptoms which is like mind blowing um but and like your bowels might change because hormones um we we know there are hormone receptors on your kind of gut in your gut your gut microbiome sensitive to them so there's loads of potential effects these hormones can have particularly around that time um but in terms of like what you can do about it and I think that's what I our like attitude particular at sport whales is like okay so this is potentially a problem but let's give you some solutions um is focusing on sleep making sure you're getting eight hours it might you might be tempted to have a early morning or only cut it to six hours but honestly like getting more sleep is important fuel yourself frequently throughout the day and make sure you get a good amount of fruits and vegetables in um getting some sources of antioxidants is really important and also try throughout the whole cycle but try to get some kind of uh Omega-3s in as well we know that can help with inflammation um um and then if you're training like listen to what your body wants if you can some people can't some people have set training and there's no wiggle room and that's fine so think about that what else is around that training to support you how do you recover well how do you seek well how do you feel well um if you can change training and you're feeling rubbish don't don't try and push through it like talk to your coach or or talk to yourself if you set your own training and see if there's things you can still use to progress you so for example um if you're a runner you might want to focus more on doing some drills or like something that is kind of technical rather than like I'm just gonna Beast myself and do really high intensity or do like a threshold run where you're still working hard but you're not just you're not pushing yourself unimaginably um so there's all there's often tweaks you can make to CH to training and one change session is not going to be the the end of your career you know it's hard it's really hard lot people find that hard get their head around don't they you know I know missed one session really doesn't matter it really doesn't matter um um and there'd be like and then also make sure you're de-stressing as well because we know stress can just exacerbate these symptoms um and that's kind of the end of the the cycle and then it starts all over again and you get another 21 to 35 days of of delightful change interesting yeah yeah but I think it's good because like you say we can when we've got the knowledge about it it's like this isn't a bad thing there's you know like when you're in that sort of high phase you feel great you know sometimes and I get sort of like glimpse I think that's I guess when you're in param menopause your hormones are doing all sorts of weird things and sometimes I think I'll get a peak of oestrogen and I'll be like woohoo feel amazing and then it'll be like an hour of that and then I'll be oh what was all that about what was I so excited about so it's it's very strange but yeah I can almost feel and I think if I hadn't tracked before yeah I wouldn't know that that was what was woman yeah I would just be like what's wrong with me why am mood swings it's like no it's just your your hormones are doing their thing that's okay yeah they got to do their thing it's good so with um you talked a little bit about research earlier and the research that's done you know mainly well within the health industry anyway we have like male sedentary males and and some and sometimes it's sedentary females as well or people with diabetes you quite often that's where they get data from isn't it but within sport is is there anything you know where's where's the Gap there where do you think the major gaps are with re good question and over the last since I've started working in this area particularly it has increased like exponentially I'd say um I remember when I started as a master students so there was just like you know papers maybe from the early 2000s before then like the 70s and that was about it like there wasn't I don't remember there being that much whereas it has come on a lot um now we we're still trying to understand kind of the symptom etiology like exactly what causes musal cycle symptoms um but from an applied point of view there's a lot of research now that shows how the cycle can have a negative effect on um an athletes whether that's people the elite of their game or um you know amateurs who just kind of I said just train three times a week that's still a lot um um and I think that's that's so super important because I think before them people would be like oh well come on you just as you say you're just making it up like it doesn't really why should we dedicate extra resource into supporting females around this um but I think like the next step is like really finding out what works for symptoms and like you know we need some really good randomised control studies around different symptom interventions because I mean particularly like myself I can speak um anecdotally as like if I'm working with an IND individual who really has a hard time around a certain time phase in their cycle I'm like okay let's just do this this and this like let's just try everything because hopefully something will work but we don't know what is actually working in that situation we don't know why um so that's really what's needed I think to kind of yeah to continue to push the understanding of the female menstrual cycle and how difficult is it to do those studies hard I think it must be pretty tricky yeah I took part in one a little while ago um it was a a climbing one I think she's based in South Wales as well I don't know when she was doing some research on climbing and and the menstrual cycle I was filling the forms in and things and I was like There's so else that's affecting me as well as that it's really hard to differentiate between what is menstrual cycle related and what is sleep or yeah like life stress related so I could imagine that kind of like clouds the research as well I mean it would with anyone but then you've got you've also got like more multiple factors haven't you yeah it's really hard to know like what's yeah what's hormone driven what's the effect of your life cycle your your lifestyle on your hormones for example like we don't know how the two kind of interact between each other really um again we only really have anecdotal evidence or kind of um uh I can't think of the word like where you look look back on data sets for example and you can kind of oh well the Mediterranean diet is associated with better symptoms it's like okay that's that helpful um so yeah it's really hard and I guess it's also really hard to do research with athletes and because particularly athletes you know we we can't change anything that means that they feel worse um or you know you can't do a randomised control trial because then you have to have a control group and then so yeah it's really difficult to do research like you can do it it is possible but you have to have kind of a a pure determination um to to do it effectively yeah yeah I could imagine but it yeah but it's sort of getting there and there's things happening and I think also you know we can't discount like personal and practical experience and trying things out with athletes and seeing what works and US kind of going actually I'm going to try this out as an athlete and see see what works and 100% just don't be afraid of experimenting a little bit no and like a few years ago I found it quite frustrating because there was a lot of talk about like how you know you can't you can't change training I don't believe you should but you can't do do things or intervene because there isn't enough research oh yeah and as a practitioner like that goes against my like ethics to not help somebody if they're coming if athletes coming to me because they're suffering I can't sit back and say oh sorry the reset so yeah you've got to try something um so yeah it does it does count for a lot really yeah definitely I remember that because they did a meta analysis and the research and it was like well there's not enough evidence to change trait and I was like yeah but surely like you know think talking back looking back at the beginning when we talked about just even acknowledging it it's kind of like saying it's going back a step and going well no the science isn't there so it doesn't mean anything or it's not important and so I found that frustrating as well I was like no we got to talk about it but yeah you know science it's not always the be all and end all really it's a part of the everything exactly it goes back to like how it's interpreted as well and yeah so yeah yeah definitely so yeah if if you could share like a key message to anyone that's working with athletes or any athletes out there that you know what would that be what would you like to say to people about being a woman in sport being an athlete there's probably quite a lot of things you'd like to say yeah trying to think of okay so I guess try to be positive around it um probably is is well not probably is a really important thing um like Embrace being a female or Embrace coaching a female like be positive around females don't there's so much negative talk around it let's change that um secondly like if you're coaching a female ask her about their M cycle if you're a female athlete being coached talk to your coach about your Mentor cycle um tell them that you're UNC contraception or ask them if on because that will that can affect hormones um and know whether you're having a regular cycle the only way you're going to know that is by tracking it so track how long your cycle is even if that's all you do that's great but I would also encourage you to track symptoms to start to know if you do have symptoms and how that has an effect on you um and then talk about it I think like they're the two things like be positive and like let's understand more um yeah two key messages yeah I like that and that that goes for you know as you get older as well because I was talking to a friend the other day and we were talking about hot flashes and things like that and it was like oh everyone's so you know I don't want to complain about you know it's a thing but it's like we don't have to see it as negative and I think there's been a huge amount of people talking about menopause now and it's going in that direction of like this is a bad thing and I just don't like to see it that way because it's not it's you transitioning to a new stage of life and if we can like reframe it and you think about it in a more positive way you know I'm much wiser now yeah we need to kind of almost go back to the wise woman and get in touch with that side of us more to to feel positive about it because otherwise it's just like people complaining and and comparing all their symptoms and and not being happy in the fact that they're like an older woman and Isn't that cool and you know you can still be really inspiring and and show people sort of amazing things so yeah we do need that positivity and the being proud of being female rather oh it's so hard yeah yeah we're not victims we're like we've got to you know be proactive in that as well we that's that is I say to the the females I work with going through puberty as well like it might be hard it might suck sometimes being female but it's also amazing so like let's let's think about it like that yeah it is amazing there's a lot of amazing experiences that we get to have so exactly yeah we got to keep it on that L awesome okay um and so where can people find you and find out more about you or follow you yeah I I mean I have social media there's not loads of content that's like physiology related on there that's right they might want to follow your running or like that um I'm es Goldsmith on Instagram okay or I'm e Goldsmith fiz pH Ys on X Twitter okay um yeah so that's yeah I'll put some links if people want to follow and if there's anything else that you want to plug or or tell people about then can amazing let me know and put that in the notes as well amazing thank you Celia okay no worries cheers Esther that's that's great thanks for listening today have a great day take care bye for now

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