Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Hormones and Training as a Female Uphill Athlete
2.1k Plays3 years ago
A fascinating chat with three of our Female Uphill Athlete coaches. This time they dive into considerations for training with their reproductive cycle. The panel consists of three female coaches each in their 20’s, 30’s, or 50’s.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction: Women in Endurance Sports
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello everyone. Welcome back to another uphill athlete podcast. My name is Maya second year. And today I'm joined by uphill athlete coaches, Carolyn Parker and Nikki LaRichelle to have another chat about being a female uphill athlete. In this episode, we chat about being in the minority and endurance mountain sports and how we deal with these situations. We also talk about the physiological differences between men and women and how to adjust training around hormones, pregnancy, and menopause. We had a lot of fun during this conversation and we hope you enjoy listening to it.
Challenges and Cultural Pressures
00:00:51
Speaker
We're here to begin conversations with the goal of helping women gain some knowledge and more knowledge to support themselves in training and build confidence in the mountain environment. We've collected feedback from many women and found a few common themes, including concerns and frustrations around training and
00:01:13
Speaker
other cultural stuff. So we're going to begin to address some of those topics today and have a short video series. Our first topic question is this topic of a feeling that women get of needing to prove themselves purely because they're women when they're often competing and training and doing things in a otherwise maybe predominantly male sport or world.
00:01:36
Speaker
And, you know, we want to talk about those issues that maybe Maya and Nikki have had, where maybe you feel a lack of support, like a minority, feel like you have to do more than or as much as your male counterparts, and maybe some, you know, stories that way that we've all encountered and how we might have dealt with it, turned it into a positive or managed situation. So, Maya and Nikki, I'll turn the floor over to you.
00:02:03
Speaker
As we've talked about before, Carolyn and I, if you've followed our series of some sort, you know, we've talked about even just working with an uphill athlete, being some of the few female coaches. Um, I've been on teams where it's mainly all men or boys, you know, I was a teenager through most of my skiing and just feeling like I needed to keep up.
00:02:22
Speaker
you know in workouts, proving to male coaches that like I was tough enough, I wasn't like the princess, that was a word thrown around a lot in my youth that like you wanted to avoid and just proving that you know you are as good or better than your male counterparts.
00:02:38
Speaker
That's interesting you went back to your youth. I hadn't thought of that, but I don't have the same background as you so deeply in sport. But what came to mind for me was limitations. For instance, I have a background in personal training, and I remember so many of my female clients would be terrified to go into the weight room. And Carolyn, I'm guessing from what you do, you have a lot of experience with this.
00:03:02
Speaker
I had kind of grown up in the weight room since basically started in high school and haven't stopped. So it feels like a space I'm quite comfortable in, but recognizing that there's a number of women that feel so uncomfortable in that space, it bums me out. I want women to feel better, more comfortable, more relevant. So that was one that just happened to come
Creating Supportive Training Environments
00:03:23
Speaker
to mind. I'm curious if you've run into that at your gym or how that looks for you.
00:03:28
Speaker
Oh, you just hit the nail on the head. I mean, it's cultural, largely. You meet a woman in her 70s, there wasn't even a woman doing a sport till that woman in her 70s, solidly in her 30s or 40s, much less stepping into a gym. I've also was fortunate enough to have a positive introduction to strength training when I was younger and have been getting people to start strength training for health, much less for performance.
00:03:57
Speaker
early in life and women. It's such a game changer and yeah it a lot of women have come and they've come into my facility which is a very different because it's mine than like a lot of these other gyms out there and they're like thank you so much. I feel so comfortable here. I don't feel intimidated. I feel like I can learn and grow and it also turns out that my entire staff is female and so it's like it's
00:04:22
Speaker
And we train men and women side by side, but it's, it's, yeah, we, we really try to support our athletes. And we've actually, I've actually found that there's a lot of men too, especially mountain athletes who have a bit of a stereotype or stigma against that strength training world, because in popular culture, it's like bodybuilding and gym rats and a thing that we don't really resonate with, which is not my facility. So.
00:04:50
Speaker
It's been really great to support men to understand that they need it as well and for their health and their performance and mobility. But most of surely women are the most intimidated and feel unsure. So it's nice to be able to support that hugely.
00:05:08
Speaker
Just speaking further on that, I think so many women, mountain athletes too, but I think just women in general approach fitness so much for like weight loss or for looks and not to be strong or healthy or injury prevention, as Carolyn just mentioned, especially around strength training. I mean, we were chatting yesterday, you can get stronger and not bulkier as a woman and there's so many misconceptions. I think it can be really intimidating being a woman going into a gym. I mean, I've been an athlete pretty much my whole life and I still have
00:05:37
Speaker
a hard time going into the gym I just joined because it's a lot of men and it's uncomfortable and I don't want them watching me so I think it's a real thing and that's not even proving yourself that's just being comfortable in
00:05:47
Speaker
any type of sport or exercise. Absolutely.
Personal Journeys and Empowerment
00:05:51
Speaker
And, and, you know, for me, it is a funny little story with like, I started in collegiate cycling. I mean, for actual organized sport, I did sports when I was young. This is the only gal road biking, you know, it's hardly any women. Cause it's a long time ago. And I started climbing over 20 years ago, 30 years ago, excuse me. Um, there's another decade. Again, not a lot of women, not a lot of women role models. I was in the.
00:06:15
Speaker
you know, Alpine and trad world. And I kind of just looked to my male counterparts as like, Ooh, I should try this and they should do this. Cause that was my only sort of picture to follow. And it was so funny cause I was bouldering one day with a really good friend of mine who was more of a high-end bouldering sport climbing climber. So it was really technically good and technically strong. And I was trying this one boulder problem one day and he took a look at me and he's like, Carolyn, you need to learn how to climb like a girl.
00:06:45
Speaker
And I was like, Oh my God, that is hilarious. Cause I was trying to just muscle everything. And that actually turned into the name of my women's climbing clinics that I developed like 15 years later is climb like a girl. But it's interesting how I was even affected as an athlete, you know, by my surroundings before I figured out over all these decades, how to harness, you know, my strength and be more efficient and move in a more efficient way. So, you know, it's just that whole.
00:07:15
Speaker
world we're in and starting to realize that we have our own space and language and ability and support that we can accrue is just talking to other women and having other mentors and women to help with some guidance. So it's really cool to have all that.
00:07:33
Speaker
Yeah, Carolyn, if I have my climbing history, right, which I likely don't, but if I do, you were at essentially the advent of climbing. Is that fair to say, like you didn't really have many female predecessors before you? Not really. I mean, there was Kitty Calhoun's a little older than me, and she was busy out at Lynn Hill, and then you're at Captain Destinville, but there were very
00:07:56
Speaker
few women who were in the media and in the world of climbing and guiding and especially even bouldering and sport climbing very few but when you tapered it down to like alpinism and traditional rock climbing and all that it's like it was just me and the guys. Kitty and I met pretty early on and you know climbed into friends and I worked with chicks climbing when they started connecting with more friends. Angela Haas
00:08:22
Speaker
who had been around forever as well and was in that same world. But yeah, there weren't a whole lot of us back then. Right. So you didn't even have really any reference points. You were just at the forefront of this. I would imagine that would be hard. Fortunately, I was kind of a tomboy, so that helped. And I really was passionate about it deep in my soul. It was something I wanted to do, so I just stubborn it out for sure. And I was a handful when I was younger.
00:08:51
Speaker
You sound, I mean, you are. It's just pretty badass in general. I just have to say it like dang. I appreciate that. It was a fun time. It still is a fun life and I have lots of fond memories. So it'd be fun to actually sit down with some of my dear old friends and let them haze me. What do we call that when you do like toast someone but you like
00:09:16
Speaker
A roast. A roast. I would love to be roasted, because I was a pain in the ass. In a good way. You know what I mean? You have to be, though. You've got to be tough and stubborn to get into these male-dominated sports and industries. You just do. Yeah.
Training Adjustments for Reproductive Health
00:09:34
Speaker
This question, too, made me reflect on, I think it was the conversation you two had with Allison, where someone had mentioned, one of the three of you had said something about,
00:09:43
Speaker
when they're with a male and they run into somebody else on the trail and maybe that person were to ask where they're headed it would always be the male that would respond like the male would ask the male like and that was just such a simple example but it really caught my attention because I thought how true that is when I'm out with my husband
00:10:04
Speaker
how he's always the one to speak on our behalf. But it also, it made me think about my own behavior and how I was raised and grew up.
00:10:14
Speaker
Um, how that affects how I behave and maybe sort of alerting me to what I could change on my own, keeping myself small, not being too overwhelming or impactful. Um, not taking up, you know, too much space in the room. I think we learn this as females. So it's in a way, I think the onus is on us to try to unlearn these behaviors we picked up in our youth, if that's resonating with anybody, but that's certainly my storyline.
00:10:41
Speaker
where it's like where opportunities where I can take up more space and have a bigger voice and.
00:10:46
Speaker
stand behind the work and time I've put into things I care about. So I don't know. I think that's such a good point. I'm six foot. I've always felt like I was too big for the room. Like everyone's like, Oh, it's so fun being tall. I'm like, no people look at you. Like I'd always try to be smaller as I mean, I think that's also age too. I'm in my early twenties. I'm still figuring myself out and finding my confidence and whatnot. But I think that's such a good
00:11:12
Speaker
especially to pass down to younger generations of women. We got to just own our presence and who we are. And so we're not having to unlearn. Let's just start teaching it early, so we're not unlearning those behaviors. Yeah, I'm thrilled that that was such a great takeaway for you, Nikki, and that that is something that you're thinking about.
00:11:34
Speaker
You know, I can I can honestly say that, you know, I'm a bit much for a lot of people, and I'm okay with that. And, you know, it's it's it. And I'm not like, I'm not rude or overpowering or, you know, I'm loving and caring and, you know, want to take care of people and altruistic and all that stuff. But it's like, just because I'm a woman, I'm not gonna let someone else steal my thunder.
00:11:59
Speaker
You know, it's just, I don't have to go stand in the corner. So I think that's a really great takeaway. And like you said, your own behavior changes. It's like, no, I have just as much of a right to be in this space as this man over here. We're all, and maybe even more depending on what the venue is. So, yeah.
00:12:20
Speaker
And Carolyn, I would offer women with that personality type. I personally am so drawn to like their self-assurance, which I know you have like a certain just comfort with who they are. I think that is just such an attractive quality in any person, but it feels more rare with women. So when I meet women like that, I find myself really drawn to them and compelled by them. So I want to be like you.
00:12:44
Speaker
No, I do too, honestly. That's like a nice warm fuzzy. Well, thank you. I hope, you know, through this work, we get to interact more and just kind of share more of that stuff that that'll be.
00:13:00
Speaker
And if I could be an inspiration or a help or a support in any way, I love it. Our next question, and it revolves around adjustments for reproductive health. So of course, one of the most significant physical differences between women and men is our reproductive cycle associated in hormone fluctuations, certain percentages of hormones, ability to bear children, which creates significant need to adjust training,
00:13:24
Speaker
pre and postpartum considerations for training relative to all those hormonal cycles, including the end of our reproductive life being menopause and being postmenopause. So this becomes
00:13:42
Speaker
Anyway, we have three really amazing resources right here. Maya's had her own experiences. She's younger on the spectrum and still training and learning from a lot of new knowledge. Nikki's a mom and well, I'm older. So I get that. Anyway, why don't we jump in and share some of our, what we've learned, what we, you know, we've adapted and what we share with people. Maya.
00:14:12
Speaker
I'll start on the young end. I feel like I actually have the least amount to say on this as I am still learning so much. I was mentioning earlier before we had this chat how little knowledge is really taught towards more women for this. So I kind of feel like I'm learning as I go. Obviously I work with a lot of different females as athletes and I learn from them. We adjust training. I think it's great when there's open dialogue. I
00:14:36
Speaker
love hearing what they have to say and their experiences with training and their cycles and whatnot. So I'm learning from them. I learned from Carolyn. I'm sure I'm going to be learning from Nikki. I think it's great. Um, but this is where my age, I feel like is a limitation for me since I just don't have as much life experience. I, my, I'm impressed. It's even on your radar. I mean, I, I think that the first thing that comes up for me when you bring up this topic is how
00:15:01
Speaker
Out of touch, I've more or less been with this until it really started impacting my life in a very direct way. But even the notion of keeping track of my cycle and knowing a little bit about hormones and what's high and what's low and the different phases of a cycle.
00:15:18
Speaker
This is all relatively new to me and new on my radar as an athlete and how these are pretty significant impacts as athletes to deal with. And really the onus would be on us to pay attention to this stuff. But I think as we talked about hasn't been terribly accessible or in the limelight in any sort of way. So I think this might be a newer idea for a lot of women to be paying attention to.
00:15:48
Speaker
I'm glad to hear it's new for you too in some ways. I'm always like, oh no, I don't know anything, but I think you're right. A lot of women are in that boat of not realizing how much it can really impact your performance. Carolyn, what are your thoughts? Oh, you know, so I get to get like the, oh, cause I'm older. It's literally just because of how many laps are on the sun and kind of my personality in general in that women's health.
00:16:13
Speaker
And I should say, and then lack of science study and research has been a pet peeve of mine for decades. But you're absolutely, both absolutely right. I would say the majority of women don't realize it's not out there, that hormones affect their training cycle. Massive lack of education, Nikki, for women such as yourself.
00:16:35
Speaker
What even the body goes through when you become pregnant adaptations adjustments. So, you know, one thing I've worked with a lot of women pre and postpartum, and it, you know, it cheeses me off that someone blows an ACL and gets eight weeks multiple months of PT all of this stuff and a woman.
00:16:54
Speaker
goes through a trauma of vaginal childbirth or C-section and is given a baby and sent home without any guidance. That is shifting. So we now have those tools that women may need pelvic floor, PT, diastasis recti, issues so that they can get back to sport and living their life and not injure themselves. I've had other women that I've talked to about training through their cycle. Women are super hard on themselves when they underperform.
00:17:23
Speaker
And when you are pre-set period and progesterone levels are high, all of the things that happen to our body hormonally, you just can't. You are not as efficient a machine. You're getting ready to potentially have like a fertilized egg.
00:17:43
Speaker
You just like to take care of. So the body slows down, you eat more, you're more tired, you have inflammation. And so women are hard on themselves. I'm like, look, what we're going to do, I used to do this to the best of my ability is harder climbs, expeditions I was going on. I would do my best to kind of map it around my cycle so I could perform when I need to, or I mean,
00:18:05
Speaker
know how many months and years cumulatively I've spent, you know, menstruating in the backcountry, which is all kinds of fun. But just knowing all that, knowing all that, being able to support women and be like, there's a reason behind all this.
00:18:21
Speaker
tracking their cycle and understanding it and setting themselves up for success where they can. It's massive. There's a lot we can do. Even just having this conversation opens the door for women to be like,
00:18:35
Speaker
It's not just me. Yeah. Even just right now, I have things going in my head. I want to know more about how birth control affects all this because that's the stage of life I'm in, right? Like how is this then another layer of impacting just like the basic science we sort of understand. I don't have an answer.
00:18:52
Speaker
You and I can never have an issue about that. I have already information so we'll talk. We'll talk. And I think admittedly the reason I haven't paid a lot of attention to it, which I'm wondering if it's true for you too, is that I didn't really give a lot of credit to what hormones do.
00:19:10
Speaker
like you you hear about it and I'm like oh it's not really doing that much or this is overstated or people are kind of overemphasizing this as something that's affecting but a good thing to keep in mind is it's these hormones that are amazingly allowing women to grow humans in their body and it grows a placenta it grows an organ so to say hormones aren't terribly impactful is not a correct statement
00:19:36
Speaker
I mean, these are like life altering, life creating functions going on in our body. So it's definitely worth considering. I've been that way my whole life with sport, like doesn't matter. Oh, on my period right now, who cares? Maybe that goes back to proving ourselves, right? Yeah. The male atmosphere, just the way we've been raised, like doesn't matter. I'm tough. I'll be fine. Cause there is that dialogue of like, you're on your period. Like that's why you're in a mood. That's why you're weak. So.
00:20:04
Speaker
If you're a competitive female, I think we all are, you're going to be like, no, absolutely not. I'm fine. And you don't learn. Why would you learn about something you kind of want to ignore? Absolutely. No question. I can't remember exactly when my whole, it was in phases that I realized all the things I've realized through my life. And I always come from a scientific place.
00:20:32
Speaker
pushed and them stubborn and always trying to kick the boys' asses, you know, all the things. And I wouldn't cut myself a lot of slack, but I would, at least from a scientific standpoint, and I would read the journals and see the thing and be like, okay, yeah, I'm going to be tough and I'll be slightly less tough.
00:20:50
Speaker
I was my internal recorder, but at least trying to like, okay, there are reasons behind why I'm feeling a specific way. And it isn't something that is just cause I'm a girl, you know, and I meant, I mean, it is, and there's nothing, but it's not like weaker gender, any of that stuff. Honestly, women, Nikki, the fact that you can grow a human
00:21:14
Speaker
And you give birth to a child, you know, hands down, you know, if you want to talk about the stronger gender. That is a massive feat. Right. It's really, I mean, human bodies are incredible growing a human being and
00:21:34
Speaker
that capacity and I'm right now about 34 weeks pregnant and I can attest that the hormones are real as I cry almost on a daily basis. And it will often be, I'll be sitting there crying and actually not feel any sadness. I just have tears coming out of my face because my hormones are wacky. I'm trying to be gracious with myself.
00:21:59
Speaker
I have to avoid watching videos of like, I went down some rabbit hole of watching videos of children that that couldn't see and they put glasses on for the first time and they can see their moms and I was like, I cannot. That one made me cry. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Or like hearing aids and little babies and they can hear for the first time. You guys want to get emotional. That's where you go. That's right. Even shows like American Ninja Warrior make me cry right now. So
00:22:29
Speaker
Who knows? The standards are quite low.
00:22:36
Speaker
See? I mean, there you go.
Hormonal Impact Awareness
00:22:39
Speaker
Formal. I know we get into our female athletic group. We do conversations about this a lot, but you know, just educating women like energies are higher when estrogens, you know, high at the beginning of your cycle and drops, you know, towards the end of the cycle and understanding. I think Maya was maybe where you might've been referring to the podcast that maybe Nikki had sent to Scott.
00:23:03
Speaker
the science of hormones and tendons and ligaments, protecting our musculosomes. Mind blowing information for me. I think you're like, that makes a lot of sense. That's why I've tendonized everywhere. Okay, good to know. I'm curious in your studying, like you've kind of done a deep dive in this. I mean, my first introduction was there was two phases of a woman cycle, which was like
00:23:30
Speaker
the follicular and the luteal phase. But then it's like the more I dive deep, there's really more like seven phases. I mean, it's very specific and
00:23:41
Speaker
Really specific things are occurring at certain times like the estrogen peaking when we ovulate and then the progesterone peaking in that luteal phase, I think that's right, where I mean there's just like big things happening and very specific things happening along the way and I'm curious if you've how that's been for you and your exploration of this topic.
00:24:03
Speaker
Well, it's, you know, I don't tend to go super rabbit hole on a lot of that with athletes because it gets a little overwhelming. So I look at it a little bit more in like that cycle and phase. And what's also fascinating is to understand how this shifts because every woman's different, right? We'll have different length cycles. Some people are on birth control, which.
00:24:30
Speaker
and which kind of birth control. And so it starts to change things. So a lot of times I'll ask people again, just like to trust themselves in their intuition and how does your body feel? If you're not tracking your cycle, track it. How many
00:24:45
Speaker
days pretty much. Where are you? Are you at 26? You at 28? I mean, I was literally put a P on the calendar 28 days later, put a P on the calendar. And I started observing that when I was younger and you really can start to feel like energy shifts. You can feel almost when you ovulate the lowest energy time for most women.
00:25:06
Speaker
Uh, is, you know, that progesterone peaks and then right before you actually menstruate estrogen just like charges back up again. And so everyone's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. And then we kind of zoom out after menstruation and we're, we're high performance as the progesterone starts to drop, but some people also have severe PMS and that affects it. So instead of. I try not to get too sciency, but I do try to encourage women to track your cycle.
00:25:34
Speaker
Listen to your intuition about how you're feeling. Eat when hungry. We do need to think about things like iron deficiencies with women. You know, this is kind of going through all that stuff and giving people that power to really not, it's not excuse itself assessing. And then I'll start to talk to them a little bit more about how it works scientifically if they're interested. And then we start talking a little bit about how adrenals and thyroid and cortisol levels.
00:26:02
Speaker
start mapping in there as well. So that starts messing with us too. So why we need adequate sleep, why we don't want to overreach and overtrain, why if we get into a cycle of amenorrhea or reds, the female triad, they now have all these new terms for it.
00:26:20
Speaker
what's happening there and why we need to correct that. So it's, it's, it's just volumes of potential study in science and research, but it's really great to crack that book open for all of us to start having that conversation with our athletes. I need to start reading like right now.
00:26:43
Speaker
You've got a lifetime. You remember, it's only because I'm like, I got a few decades on you that I know all this stuff. You'll catch up, I promise.
00:26:54
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it's, it's cool.
Understanding Menopause
00:26:57
Speaker
You know, it's not, there's a lot of information out there. I think too, I was thinking about how I, I forget at what point in the cycle this occurs or what hormone affects this, but maybe it is when you're ovulating, but there's like a 30% more of a likelihood that you could tear soft tissue because of that relaxing hormone comes into play. Like I know from being pregnant, I had a bunch of SI joint pain because your pelvis basically relaxes.
00:27:24
Speaker
And it creates all sorts of problems for pregnant women because there's just this like lacks in the pelvis. So at one point in my pregnancy couldn't do any running and even downhill hiking hurts so badly. And then somewhere along the way, it completely normalized, but I do know that that
00:27:43
Speaker
hormone comes into play just for women going through their cycle normally. So it's even being attuned to knowing when maybe you don't go do something where you have a higher potential of tearing your ACL or just having that on your radar even. But I think like implications like that are important.
00:28:00
Speaker
Yeah, and that tying into that, you know, that podcast we had all listened to, the science is fascinating. And then you map in like, okay, pregnant women and relaxing levels go high. I really love that they call the hormone relax. Yes.
00:28:16
Speaker
really fascinating. I mean, it's interesting because it's, it's systemic too, right? Like it's all the connective tissue in your body. So like every, like it isn't like a targets, just one area. So that's an issue. It's an issue through our cycle. And then if you add in, if a person is hypermobile already,
00:28:37
Speaker
They have joint laxity. If it's a woman who isn't regularly like strength training, so they don't have as much joint stability and as much stress on tendons and ligaments to strengthen them. Yeah. Then that risk of, like you said, like ACL from that podcast, ACL injuries, joint injuries, tendonitis, like Maya, it's so much higher in women.
00:29:02
Speaker
From all of that, it's fascinating. We're learning so much, these modern, even in like the last 10 years, things have shifted and still are. I'm excited that so much more research is happening. So we have a lot to talk about.
00:29:17
Speaker
Yes, I know this is such a dense topic there's so many sub categories. I mean, you want to hit on the menopause zone. Oh my. How do you want to go with that a lot of we want to record.
00:29:34
Speaker
I think some of the biggest things I can say for empowering women when they start getting there is to understand, first, that we peak for hormonal reproduction somewhere around age 25. It doesn't mean we can't have children for many, many years, but hormonal peaks in most women around that age
00:29:54
Speaker
And then it, we actually plateau for a while. And then for women, depending on genetics, lifestyle, all the things, there's sort of a decline that starts in our thirties and it's slow and steady. So we're asymptomatic. We don't realize it, menopause doesn't just happen. So somewhere in our lifespan, it can be some women start even in their late thirties, early forties, more often.
00:30:19
Speaker
it's mid 40s and later, you start having some symptoms that you'll write off as other things. You'll miss a period. You'll feel a little tired. So the, the list of symptoms that you can experience is fairly massive. It's big and don't write it off. It's just like all the other things women do.
00:30:39
Speaker
Hot flashes, nightswips to the point I couldn't sleep, but for two to three hours at night, I had, I've never had anxiety and have moments of anxiety, moodiness, lack of energy, unstable blood sugar. Oh yeah. Vaginal dryness, painful sex, loss of libido. It all
00:31:01
Speaker
happens. And we have tools, there are ways to manage this, both depending on the individual and their choices from a clinical Western standpoint to a more complimentary like seeing an MD, some sort of hormonal support, sleep support,
00:31:20
Speaker
getting blood tests done so you know where your hormones are, getting cortisol level checked, thyroid level checked, like open the box, find a really good doc, OBGYN team, talk to friends, and realize that the reason we want to deal with it now is that we are living longer. So if a woman hits menopause in her 50s, which is like post-menopausal, your hormones are
00:31:46
Speaker
We have an increased risk in cardiovascular disease, bone density issues, certain types of cancer. If our lifespan was normally 45 to 50 years as a homosapien, there's a reason menopause happens then. But if we're tacking 30 years onto that and we're at higher risk for all these other things, it's a thing that we need to address and support women.
00:32:11
Speaker
There's also nutritional changes to help with muscle wasting issues. I was going through that increased protein and leucine levels for a postmenopausal woman. So it's big, but there are a lot of tools out there and a lot that can be done. And I always just encourage people, you know, don't just like all what we talked about with younger women, pregnant women, don't downplay it, get some help. Cause there is a lot more information out there. It can kick your ass and I'll be honest. I was getting my ass kicked for awhile, but you know,
00:32:41
Speaker
got some help and it's a lot better. So yeah, still here. Still brutal. It really does. Yeah. And everyone was different. Everyone's going to experience it at a different time, different severity, different, different, different, which is I think one of the other pieces we want to honor.
00:33:01
Speaker
Some people don't have a lot of issues. And I was lucky the rest of my life, I've had almost zero issues with any sort of hormonal thing, training. It was all pretty easy, normal, very low PMS, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I used to tell my husband, yeah, this is what I got. 35 years of it being easy.
00:33:22
Speaker
Now it's going to be a little harder. That's what I would say to women. There's help to be had out there. Don't just feel like you have to suck it up and suffer. Because the other piece, all this is like the stigma component of it being a very closed door. I mean, just you don't hear a lot of people speaking to it or vocalizing it or expressing it.
00:33:43
Speaker
over concern about this sort of stuff. So it's really true and women don't feel comfortable even saying like menopause. We don't talk about that or if there's lack of now some kind of worth because you've you've ended your menstrual and you're now you're just going to be an old crone. It's like what am I going to think about that right? But I think there's like there's a lot of societal stigma.
00:34:13
Speaker
with it. So just allowing people to feel comfortable to have that conversation is, I think, super important.
Podcast Conclusion and Future Directions
00:34:20
Speaker
Yeah. Yes. I agree. Yeah. Anyway, that was a good chat. What a good chat. Yes. Thank you for tuning in. For more information about joining our female uphill athlete group kicking off October 11, 2021, go to www.uphillathlete.com. We would love to have you.