Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
017 - The Missing Manual: Decoding Female Athlete Development
93 Plays1 month ago
This is episode will transform how male coaches lead female athletes. And Girl Dads, pay special attention.
Join us as performance expert Kristin Weitzel reveals the science-backed strategies that elite coaches use to develop, connect, and communicate with female athletes. She'll break down:
- How to adapt training around biological rhythms for peak performance
- Keys to building unshakeable trust and team culture
- Evidence-based approaches to managing load, recovery, and progression
- Critical developmental windows you need to understand
- Communication frameworks that strengthen coach-athlete relationships
This isn't just about what to do differently - it's about understanding why these approaches work and how to apply them in your specific context. Because when you truly understand female athlete development, you unlock levels of performance you didn't know were possible.
Training Programs - 7 Day Free Trial
Old Bull: https://bit.ly/old-bull-train
Captain's Speed, Strength, & Swagger: https://bit.ly/captains-train
#CaptainsandCoaches #FemaleAthletes #CoachingWomen #WomenInSports #GirlsInSport #AthleteDevelopment #FemalePerformance #WomensStrength #TrainingForWomen #CoachDevelopment #GirlDad #TitleIX #WomensSportsMedicine #FemalePhysiology #WomensHealth
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction & Training Insights
00:00:00
Speaker
four weeks in the cycle, there's four different, you're four different people. And I'm like, we're 30 different people. Okay. We're different every day. Like I would be training women harder in the first two weeks of their cycle. And I would be training them a bit easier in the last two weeks, specifically, and especially that last week before the period is a better deload week for a specific athlete or a better like rest and recover. They're going to feel more insular. Welcome to the Captains and Coaches podcast where we explore the art and science of leadership through the lens of athletics and beyond. I'm your host Tex McQuilken and today we're joined by Kristen Wetzel for one of sports most critical and let's face it, potentially awkward conversation, how male coaches can better understand, support, and level up their female athletes.
00:00:43
Speaker
We cover the unique challenges male coaches face when working with young women, from understanding developmental differences, building trust, team dynamics, and creating supportive environments. And trust me, if you've ever wondered why your entire team seems to be having an emotional week all at the same time,
00:01:01
Speaker
Kristen's got your answers, I don't know, I blacked out. Stay tuned for actionable insights, real world examples, and how to organize your practices and training sessions around, well, let's just say mother nature's game plan. We get awkward, we get real, because let's be honest, if you can't say menstruation without breaking into a cold sweat, this episode is definitely for you.
Coaching Challenges & Approaches
00:01:24
Speaker
With that, let's hand it off to Kristen. Ready, ready, and break.
00:01:35
Speaker
dear man that you are, changing the world one athlete at a time. My peak expression in the world is to work across a couple different verticals, do a lot in the breath work and cold exposure space that's growing more and more, especially when it comes to teams and universities and when the big throws of yeah, chatting with a lot of schools now around how we can utilize performance breathing for wins and for mental emotional stability.
00:02:02
Speaker
which we'll get into later. And I also work with a a ton of women. That's what I've been doing for seven plus years, coaching females and leaning into all different ages and yeah sizes and shapes and backgrounds in order to be able to coach them successfully and well into just life in general, right? But also sport and life as part of that. That's the reason I wanted to have this conversation. yeah I've heard you present, and then a lot of that information that you presented on was new to me, which we're gonna highlight here. And I've got five sisters, I've coached female teams in college, high school girls, and then there's still distinct moments where I felt ill-equipped to empower and take them to the next level, one of which a 14-year-old girl, volleyball player, club player,
00:02:53
Speaker
We were in the weight room and she was just sighing. I could just see this negative body language. I tried to cheer her up and ask her, what's going on? Or, hey, what can I do for you? And she just sighed again and said, it's just so hard being a 14 year old girl.
00:03:09
Speaker
And I just had to agree with her. Like, you're right. So ah these weights aren't going to lift themselves. Let's get back to it. I didn't know what to do. yeah ah And then just working with Georgetown Women's Lacrosse, I had it such a performance-based mindset and was so just... I geared up for their moment that I they i knew they had in time. They didn't quite understand the same value and appreciation. So there was a disconnect about how hard I wanted them to work and then their their belief of what hard work was. So when they were sore, I was excited.
00:03:47
Speaker
and they took that as an injury. It was just a misframing of how hard they worked. They viewed that as injury, and I watched that connection. I actually lost the team as a coach, just the inability for me to to really connect with them. So had the the program dialed in, however, it was that connection and empowerment that just lost. yeah, a lot of the conversations we're gonna to have today, basically with sisters and teams, I've just,
00:04:17
Speaker
earmuffs and pretended not to have or just ignore. But now I feel that we can have a good conversation to empower a lot of male coaches working with teenage female athletes, college female athletes, and help empower them and take them to the next level versus just ignoring this and pretending a lot of this stuff doesn't exist.
00:04:38
Speaker
I've always been able to kind of integrate with men very well. And there was a moment when I was working with Denison University swim team when I went to go, I think I've said this to you off camera, I went to go lead some breath and talk to them about nasal breathing and all of that. And I just really saw the drastic difference in relatability and ah motivation between the male athletes and the female. So we're talking about 18, 19 year old to 21 year old athletes, 40 men. I had them for an hour, a little over an hour, and then I had like lecture and then some breath work and then 40 women.
00:05:12
Speaker
And I haven't had the men first, which was just an interesting entree because I was like giving out gold stars, like, you know, gold star, like getting someone to make an answer and saying, all right, two claps for Tim. And the guys were like, yeah, I'm super excited about a clap or a gold star, which are just these like ethereal. We're stupid. Like nothingness in a good way and and kind of cross motivating each other and being very linear. And that was like it made it feel direct and easy and um Yeah, like like I'm clear on the communication here and and pretty outward um on their end as well. If they were into what I was talking about or not or if they had a question, it was like a relatively direct thing. Although sometimes male athletes will be like, I'm not going to say that I don't know. So sometimes you come across that. But that was, to me, that was like a big pivotal. That's only a few years back now. And I was really like, dang, there's a huge difference in this.
00:06:05
Speaker
the the way I can be direct, the way I can communicate and how much nuance and what I would say like roundness around working with
Recovery & Training Adaptations
00:06:12
Speaker
women, right? And it's not a better or worse. It's just different styles, like management styles, right? You got to know your audience. And then you also had experience working with female UFC fighter and stepping into her camp where she was coached by males and now you were female coach stepping in. Yeah. So what was that environment like stepping into?
00:06:31
Speaker
I think, I mean, she's amazing. I think I i learned, like you said, when you had a, it's like the first big pro athlete that I worked with. And I really learned over the training camp cycle, working with her, like some beautiful things that I should not do as a coach. And, you know, you're also talking about the world of MMA and UFC. There's a lot of coaches in the mix.
00:06:55
Speaker
Kristen was very excited to come in and share everything she knows and just from a place of like camaraderie and collaboration. And also I i knew my place and in in many ways, right? I'd never worked with someone in the UFC before. I got to see these like revered amazing coaches who were coaching either strength and conditioning or what have you. But I'm also a biohacker, right? So I'm like, well, there's three other things we could be doing right here that your strength and conditioning coach isn't even talking about, which is like,
00:07:21
Speaker
I needed to understand that I'm never going to have as much experience and strength and conditioning for that vertical of sport as someone who's showing up having 15 plus years. And I was never trying to tell another coach what to do, but because I would make suggestions to the athlete.
00:07:37
Speaker
that um I would say in the long run it got me in a little bit of like trouble because it creates confusion amongst the ranks and nobody ever wants to feel like their toes are stepped on and although I did talk to the other coaches sometimes it just what a beautiful lesson for me as a coach to navigate that situation but the thing that I saw the most which I want to touch on is I know from working with female athletes of all kinds whether that's professional or amateur anything in between that we need more recovery and rest. We just do. Hormoneally, physically, um we we can even perform better in some cases by getting a little bit more rest than our male counterparts in the same sport. And when I looked a lot into the scenario with the UFC crew, I also could see that here's all of these men on the team, just a few handful of women.
00:08:24
Speaker
there's a whole another layer in here of if you take more rest because it's frowned upon in the male athlete segment, like you're being lazy or you're not keeping up with the team, there is a mindset shift or there is a reputation shift that could happen. It didn't really happen with my athlete too much. It's a powerful you know hard worker and here's professional athletes adhere to everything you say which is the other piece like be be wary they're going to do everything you say and then some but there's this maladaptive training that exists across the landscape of professional fighting and not just in my opinion and like with Don Moxley and many of the people have worked with wrestlers ufc m mma all of this so there's a maladaptive training piece that we need to learn to recover from and we need to learn how to get our athletes to recover within the confines of
00:09:12
Speaker
how much recovery can we make work without anyone else on the team giving someone so much that they're gonna then feel like they're not a part of it and then that affects the mindset. So on that was wild to see. And I always quote the study, there's a a Diana Ball study that's out there that showcases, Dan Garner introduced it to me. He he works with a ton of m MMA and and and fighters in the UFC, boxers, all of it. Like when you have a ah female and you're coaching females,
00:09:39
Speaker
They did a study that was like Diana Ball. They brought a bunch of women in. They said, hey, we're going to give you Diana Ball. And we're going to give you this whole lecture for an hour on what testosterone does for the male body and how it helps them perform, grow more muscle mass, like really how that's helpful.
00:09:55
Speaker
and in the study, and I'm butchering a little bit of of the the details, but so they give a lecture and then they put these women on an eight-week cycle and said, we're giving you Diana Ball and, you know, let's see Diana Ball, which is a steroid, right? And let's see how the muscle progresses. And so the women, um this one group who gets the Diana Ball is like, okay, we know we have it. the other The other women are told we don't know if we do or not.
00:10:20
Speaker
and um the women who have diab on their system, it's like they they gain 42 percent more muscle than the non-group. At the very end of the study, they gather over together and say, what we we give everyone placebo. so The point of this study is, and certainly I can send it to you so you can put it in the notes, that that the belief, the power of belief for females is so strong that it's actually like chemically able to give them potentially, right? It's either neurochemically or it is like, i I believe that I have more power, so I'm going to lean into working harder thinking I can maybe, you know, just maybe recover a little bit less, but just like I'm going to lean into working, I'm going to put the extra weights on, I'm going to go the the extra mile in the training program to be able to like do this while I have this substance in me. and And so whatever the notion is, that's the underpinning of that, which you don't know unless you're like pulling bloods and doing mindset subjective tests every day. So that still made them, you know, have gains up to 40%, which is wild. right So it's like the lesson in that study is, and again, it's one study and it's a certain group of people and all the things, but the lesson continues to be, and I see this time and time again repeated.
00:11:29
Speaker
the power of belief for female athletes is way more potent than many times it can be with males. Doesn't mean it's not going to work with males, but women are really going to actively listen and feel into that, you know? So belief and mindset is something that we really need to be able to champion with females. I think before we dive deeper and get into the the physiology, I think the mindset's a good place to sit because that's that is right out in front of us. what are some of the the psychological differences between working with males and females? You mentioned the gold stars and how moronic men are. I concur. I didn't use the word moronic. I did. Versus the female athletes.
00:12:17
Speaker
particular with the teenage, because a lot of the high school coaches that are are listening to this or in the field, yeah they're responsible for both male and female athletics, just depending on where where the season goes. they can have a career within the high school setting. what are some small adjustments based off your experience that coaches can be mindful and start to bring awareness to how they're communicating or just listening for for how those female athletes are interacting?
00:12:47
Speaker
I think the first thing is like just noting the difference of women really want to feel in a safe container, right? So if I'm speaking about when I'm gathering teams together, perhaps the men, I'm like putting them in rows and they're all in a thing and they're in front of a whiteboard and I'm like, you know, writing on the whiteboard. And it's just very, it's got some linear classroom style feel to it. But when I'm gathering a group of women, I'm going to either have it be like a softer structure that they're sitting in or I'm going to put them in a circle or I'm going to feel and all of this, this can sound like kind of woo or like,
00:13:18
Speaker
Like maybe it sounds even silly to a coach that can not really affect the difference but like when you are sitting women in a circle or you're letting them sit in their little like clans of women groups that they're kind of forming within the team there is a notion as long as they're not too chitty chatty with each other there's a notion of safety in that there's a notion of wanting to have their nervous system systems feel safe so that they're not on guard, that you say something and then it rubs them the wrong way. And so even just like the way you are, you know, got gathering the females together can make a difference. Like what the environment is like, are you in a, if I have the option, I'm going to bring women into a room that has much more
00:13:56
Speaker
like, ceiling and walls, and like, it's going to feel a little bit more confined in the sense of it creates more safety, right? And you don't always have that. You're at a pool environment, you're on a big field, you're outside, but we're taking in the landscape of everything neurochemically. We're wanting to make sure the village is okay, as it as you would, you know, imagine in the past when we were hunters and gatherers and whatnot. how do we sort of let that landscape exist with everyone, all the females taking in each other and what's happening in the space, and how do I speak more softly, and how do I do the thing especially if I'm a male coach women want to be seen they want to be heard and there's a fine line as you know if you open the platform for an entire female team to talk you'll never get to practice how do you find the ways that you can have one-on-one experiences with people who need to be
00:14:42
Speaker
heard and or the captains or you know utilizing other women on the team if you're a man if you're a man to be able to sort of translate the message in a way that feels soft and that they are be their opinions are being valued, right? Because all far too often do I see like the firm hand and I know that some females respond to that But there is a notion of time. If they've been coached by a lot of men, they may have gotten a thicker skin. And because I remember in just my a my days as a a younger athlete, if you would call me that, but in sport, I had nights when I would go home and like have a cry in the pillow until I got used to sort of how the male coach was. And then I had nights in my corporate job, even when the men on the team were all, it was 18 men and me.
00:15:27
Speaker
And I was like, okay, I have to recalibrate myself to this structure because my male boss would yell at me. And then two hours later, he'd be like, we're all going to happy hour and I let's go. And I would think, but are you mad at me? And like, there's that, there's that notion of we really will take things generally speaking more personally. Maybe that tone can be brought once trust and rapport is established yeah versus leading with that. Yeah.
00:15:51
Speaker
And then keeping that until they adapt to it, they may maladapt. And then we've lost the athlete. I like that just changing the formation of the group. That's a simple way. Instead of the the huddle up where we're getting close and and tight together now, it's a circle. And we get an opportunity to where each each person is viewed equally versus the team leader in front of the huddle, which is traditional for male sports.
00:16:21
Speaker
Time out. Are you beat up burnout and changing your workouts to what you think it's missing? If you're changing your own training program, I don't think it's the right training program for you. Give the old bull program a ride. It's a movement practice designed for the thinking man who's ready to train smarter, not just harder. We've eliminated your excuses by creating a flexible program that adapts to your schedule while intelligently addressing the wear and tear from years of grinding through poorly designed training. Each day offers options that honor your body's needs while still challenge you to grow stronger and look the part of a leader. Our programming systematically rebuilds your foundation, healing those beaten up shoulders, cranky hips, and stiff back that's holding you back. Join a community of lifelong athletes who've learned that sustainable progress comes through intelligent training.
00:17:14
Speaker
the old bull program, wisdom through movement. Click the link in the show notes for a seven day free trial. Now let's get back to the show. Ready, ready, and ready.
Feedback & Communication Strategies
00:17:23
Speaker
How can a coach perform constructive feedback? Because a lot of the male perspective is it's humility, it's shame. it's in front of the group, we're watching film, and you're getting made fun of.
00:17:40
Speaker
That is tradition. sometimes it leads up to like a bust and chops way. So we're teasing, teasing, teasing until there's a moment of very constructive pointed feedback. you lead the teasing up to the point where now it's targeted in front of the group. there's a lead up to that versus the And then this is a common saying a lot of people connect with. Once a coach stops talking to you, that's how you know you really messed up. Because they're not teasing you. They're not busting chops. And they're not giving you coaching.
00:18:17
Speaker
now how can a male coach effectively, maybe it's not appropriate to tease them and bust chops and give them a hard time, how can they effectively lead up to moments of constructive criticism, pointed feedback? Yeah, and I think I want to underpin this by saying there are moments you have to have, like tough love, there are moments you have to really rally someone to.
00:18:41
Speaker
get out of their own way and so I think there are clear moments that that has to happen with a male coach to the female athlete for sure and by no means do I think we need to like kid gloves or baby females in the space it's just a different style of connection.
00:18:57
Speaker
A thing that I use even now, and I run this business called Sherpa Breath and Cold, and I'm chain training instructors of all kinds. And the thing that I really love is I'm not so much a nerd about studies, but like a lot of these beautiful studies and about leadership have come into my life. And there was a big study at Harvard where they really analyzed like what happens with critiques and how people feel, even whether it's at the job or in a sport environment, getting critiqued 80% of what we're getting critiqued on we kind of already know and some of the pieces of that we're being way harder on ourselves. So where I think maybe ah this could apply to men but I think with women there is an opportunity for male coaches or any coaches or females to sort of say set a precedent on the team.
00:19:41
Speaker
to ask for, hey, what's something you love that really went right with that play or game or what have you, and what's something you would have liked to see yourself do better that would have benefited the overall team. And and maybe it's like a quick fire round, right? Again, you don't want to be like, for 10 minutes, we're going to talk about this, but let's just say you're showing tape. And then it's like, okay, Melody,
00:20:02
Speaker
tell me what you liked about what you just saw and tell me what you might have done differently. And there's a really interesting empowerment that comes along with that. And what I find game-changing is that people know, like they kind of know, right? And maybe not every component, but they know what they effed up and they're like, you can give them one or two tips that the whole team then learns from. This is like a meta lesson. But if you get them to start the conversation, then it doesn't land so much like Oh, look what you just made. You know, they made this mistake. The whole team suffered, you know. Yeah, because now the the film room, I made a mistake in the third quarter. I'm not even paying attention. I'm just waiting till, okay, what's coach going to say? But you're not paying attention to anything until you hit that part of the film. Yeah.
00:20:46
Speaker
because you're not open you're not open to it because it's become such a pointed, I mean, place. Yeah. It's like the laces out moment. Laces out. That's where you're just concentrating on it. Yeah. At least my high school football coaches were creating a bunch of Ray Finkel's, but I have plenty of hilarious stories on that. So yeah, but I like that empowerment where, what did you see here versus me telling you, And then what would you do differently? Because now that's more in a position where we can shape that. And then whenever this moment comes up again in the future, I know, I trust you to know what to do. Somehow it like hearkens back to the things like even in like CrossFit coaching where you're coaching someone and you're like, this is what I see. This is what I want to see. It's just softer than saying that sucked. Try that pull again. Like it just, it's softer in some way. Or it at least gives the a feeling that you're like wanting
00:21:43
Speaker
to hear what they have to say. And then maybe they get it right. Maybe they get what they got wrong right. And it makes your job as a coach like that much easier. Because you can say, well, great point. And here's two other things I'd layer into that. It also makes people better start to be better on a team when they're used to speaking about what they did that was good. or and and doesn't have It could be one either one first or second. But what would you like to change? Notice the language I'm using. What might you have changed that would have supported the team better on that?
00:22:10
Speaker
And again, there's probably times to say, what do we think about what just happened in that and that clip that that are a little more direct? But asking what do we think could be different or what do we think went well when there's an opportunity to talk about that also makes them, I think, better at getting constructive criticism or feedback from other people on the team, i.e. maybe the team captains or something, being more resonant to it. if you had Imagine if you had that through line of that kind of a little bit of inquiry or active listening, active listening, male coaches, active listening,
00:22:38
Speaker
from like from the coach to the team captains all the way down to the team and that you created that as the culture and you're female athletes, it's just everything would move so much
Menstrual Cycle & Athlete Performance
00:22:47
Speaker
more smoothly. The coaching culture, communication and open to that. That should be the goal first. It's not what you know as a coach. It's what you can get your team to understand and then have them communicate across the board. Yeah.
00:23:03
Speaker
let's start to dive into it. So I do want to spend some time with developmental differences. Yeah. And again, this is where the ear muff moments were ah plenty of about periods. That's the one. Uh, so I mean that high school age.
00:23:21
Speaker
Everybody's going through different body changes. So now how how can a male coach approach this? What are the biggest misconceptions for the stage of a female athlete's life that they may just be oblivious to?
00:23:36
Speaker
yeah It's important for them to understand for their development. yeah And their performance, their well-being, and just being a well-rounded athlete. So let's just unpack the thing about the cycle, the monthly cycle. right Because the that's part of the biggest thing here within when we're unpacking it, where male coaches are like, I don't know. i just I think we live in a world that I want everyone to feel comfortable. And more and more this is happening. But even spoke when i i when i spoke at the in that and that room,
00:24:03
Speaker
it's like as male coaches and again I'm going to tell you and you're going to know that there are going to be specifics when maybe an institution is cultural or religious or you can't ask about these things and so I'm not talking about those types of schools or environments etc but don't be the male coach that is nervous to ask about you have your period or whatever like I know in general that males will be like I don't want to ask because I don't want it to be like a pointed thing that maybe is inappropriate to say because you're crabby so you you must have your period like which is a total like oversimplification and misrepresentation but and finding the ways to ask and and
00:24:41
Speaker
let the females on your team know that you're comfortable with that language or conversation is important from the get-go because even if it feels awkward for them, so like my dad would try to have conversations with me about that and I would be like, ah okay, or like someone I would like know that was a man and it would, it's, their language was awkward, my feeling was awkward, but if you set the stage to just speak about it plainly and and I would say like clinically or physiologically in a way that's not using any slang or whatever, like, oh, you ladies are menstruating or, you know, whatever the language is, like, women can handle the word period and we're going to, like, from the ages of 12, 13, 14 till 50, 60, we're going to bleed once a month. Sorry, not sorry. That's like the most beautiful thing that we get to make children and we have all these things. And I really feel like it's being brought in as like the fifth vital sign. It is a something
00:25:33
Speaker
from female from a female athlete perspective, women quite often are losing their period, right? They're going amenariic before a big game or race or whatever because they're over-training. And so one of the goals like even working with the UFC fighter was how can we keep our period all the way up to our fight, right? Which isn't isn't common. And if we she's going to lose it, have it be like one month, but not amenariic for six months, or like some of these athletes we find They don't have their period for a year. Gymnasts, you know? they're They're so lean and their body's in such a stressed state that that it's like... And the potential training culture that they're in, they're not allowed to say anything. Totally. So now it negatively affects their future yeah reproductive abilities. I assume. Well, it could, it it could for sure in a hundred different ways. And then you have the other anomaly in this, all of this is just like when parents decide and or kids, cause obviously we're not studying as coaches, if a child or young athlete or collegiate athlete, et cetera, is or a professional athlete in their own regard or their own autonomy, they're going to decide I'm going on birth control. And then that's a whole and nother.
00:26:36
Speaker
Like, that's a whole other thing that's going to shift the state of the body and the being because birth control, if it's oral contraception, the way that it's pulsing in a body is like not actually... giving a full hormonal cycle as it would happen. Naturally, it's mimicking little pulses of hormones every day. So that can like change the game again. So with all of this confusion, it's like, where do we start? And I think we start as coaches saying, hey, is there a way for me to present this in any way to the females on my team that feels comfortable for me? So the first thing you got to do is if you're a male coach, before you even approach it, maybe start talking to some women you know in your personal life about their period so you can get comfortable with it in the region and the territory and whatever that you are.
00:27:16
Speaker
Have some conversation. And like every man out there who is dating a female should have an understanding and knowledge about when that woman where that woman is in her cycle. And the challenge with that is many women, when I'm like, what day are you? What day of the month is it? They're like, I don't know. I'm not tracking it. So more and more that's getting better. But get familiar with the language so that you're not walking in your first day trying on the new language for size with your female team or your female athletes. And then go to the place where you're finding a solution, i.e., maybe you're giving a big presentation about that. um At some of the universities, they'll bring like the school psychologist in to just be on hand, or maybe that's a woman, and then there's like some interplay so that it feels like it's more comfortable. ah Maybe it's like an intake form that you just are like handing out to say, OK, we're going to talk about this because it's actually really important. There's a vital sign. And I'm just going to get some insight on each of you all if you know where you are in your monthly cycle. or
00:28:13
Speaker
if it's coming you know you got to be careful though with young women because if some of the women have their period on the team and some of them have not gotten it yet there's this little like some women are proud of getting their period and excited and celebrating it and some of them are embarrassed. So like when you play in that range of 11 to 14 year olds you probably have to be a little bit more cautious even so and it might be more of a one-on-one intake conversation to just Get them to check the box or not so you know what's going on. Because it's going to give you insight into their emotionality if they've already begun to have that hormonal shift or not. So for everyone, it's going to be a little different. I'm super comfortable talking to women about where they are in their cycle and saying to females, hey, let me explain to you why it's a good idea to track where you are so we know. You know?
00:28:59
Speaker
So that I'm not so I know it's so sweet as we're talking you're like I can feel that you're like comfortable not comfortable comfortable If you're watching on YouTube, it's not acting But it's so it's so great like imagine if you could say if you knew I mean 24-hour testosterone cycle is so different. But imagine if you just knew that there's one week of the month that it made much more sense to do the deload in your dry land training or your strength and conditioning for women. I did want to cover that. For a specific woman. Yeah. Imagine if you just knew for your athletes and there was time that women felt energetically like, I can crush it right now. That woman is also going to be able, that female is going to be able to take harsh criticism during those
00:29:42
Speaker
five or seven days of ovulation is when that would happen. We're like, we're ready to go out. We're powerful. We're good to negotiate. We're down. We're feeling confident. And so that's the time to have the tougher conversations. The challenge then becomes, even though there is this notion of women are going to start to cycle together, none of your women are ever going to be on the same cycle on the same day at the same time all at once.
00:30:03
Speaker
But they're playing the same season schedule. They're playing the same season schedule. And then, you know, if we want to break down breathing, this important breathing piece that comes up right out of Patrick McEwan's Breathing Cure is his book. two He has two chapters on females and breathing. When there's a rise in progesterone, so just for all the men who are listening,
00:30:23
Speaker
Typically, it's like two phases there's four weeks in a cycle. There's four phases, but a lot of times it's spoken about as two, the follicular phase being the first two weeks, and the ovulation in the middle of that, and then the um the luteal phase in the last two weeks.
00:30:36
Speaker
so A man in a white lab coat decided to say, day one of a woman's cycle is when she bleeds. And I say that's a man in a white lab coat because a man needed to have some kind of representation outwardly to say, okay, you're bleeding, that's day one, now we know how to count it.
00:30:54
Speaker
For women, I think we feel, generally speaking, like when we get our period, it's the end of our monthly cycle. So that's just like an interesting thing on how we feel in our bodies. But for clinically clinically clinically speaking, day one, first day of bleed, that's the first day of your cycle. So just to put that out there, that begins the follicular phase, but you are in menstruation. That's good. He's holding on for dear life, I can tell. That's so great. i know i'm So you're in menstruation for those first three to five days. It's amazing. And some women will have continued PMS and they might feel crampy and they might feel crabby. And the healthier your athlete is, the more cleanly they're eating, the more they're getting rest, the less symptomatic they will be for PMS. So important. So first three to five days, day one to day five is probably menstruation.
00:31:41
Speaker
could be three days, could be five days, could be a little longer, shorter, depending on the athlete. And that's part of the follicular phase. And then we like ride up where there starts to be a big rise in estrogen, which is amazing. We go to ovulate, which is the time that we're fertile, which is usually like two days or less over simplification, but two days or less, some women shorter, some women not many longer but in there and the only really the real way we know is we're either tracking it through urine or blood right but we have a gauge on it being around day 14 or 16. That time of ovulation is like
00:32:13
Speaker
confidence, good at negotiating, feeling really good in our bodies. We're mid cycle, we don't feel bloated. We like, generally speaking, that's like a powerful time for women those like five, seven days and the follicular phase feels more powerful than the back half of the cycle, which is the luteal phase, like after we ovulate.
00:32:31
Speaker
I'm misspelling all of this in my notes. L-U-T-E-A-L, yeah. Luteal. Sometimes people say luteal. i don't you know ever It's pronounced all over the place. But so Patrick McEwen, going back to this breathing thing, um read a bunch of TMJ studies and a couple other studies that allude to the fact that the rise in progesterone, which happens in the back half of our cycle, so the luteal phase, I think he says about day 18 to 22 in the cycle, that because of the progesterone, there's a mechanism of action there, rising.
00:32:59
Speaker
there is less capacity, up to 25% less capacity for a woman to utilize CO2. Meaning, if CO2 is the vehicle with which you get oxygen into the body and the tissues and the brain, that means that we have up to a 25% less chance of oxygenating our system as well as the very same female athlete in the very same race day, who's in maybe day seven of their cycle, right? So it gives us a disadvantage. So this is why I always speak about the breathing practices we need to do, because we better be prepared if we're in a bad time, quote unquote, a lesser oxygenated time of our cycle than we might be when we face another athlete, which is insane, right? It's like, can you imagine like with a full reproductive years hormonal cycle that that shift happens?
00:33:49
Speaker
And Patrick might allude to the fact that because we're breathing more shallow or we need more air, we breathe more shallow, we breathe through the mouth. Because we breathe through the mouth more often, we lose touch with our pelvic floor and then we feel crankier. We tend to get 45 to an hour less sleep during that part of the cycle. And then he would say, perhaps that's indicating some of the things that are coming up in PMS, right? Pain is starting, we're more sensitive, all of that happens in the body.
00:34:14
Speaker
So wild. I know it's a lot. I'm overwhelmed just listening. But it's amazing. And you're like, thank goodness. I'm a man. But it's a superpower because there are times that we can rest and there are times that we can feel really strong. And if we can sort of navigate our a little bit of our training or give ourselves less shame, right? Hopefully we have no shame. But if whereas women or female athletes saying,
00:34:37
Speaker
Hey, I know i'm ah I'm feeling a little less strong and motivated right now, but that aligns really well with the fact that it's a couple days before my period. I'm sensitive. I'm not sleeping as well. Okay, great. Let me not be so hard on myself. Yeah. If you can anticipate the ebbs and the flows, then you can reframe it and then not feel the shame or disappointment because you didn't perform as well or train as well, or i mean even sleep.
00:35:04
Speaker
Yeah. And so can you imagine how great it would be if a male coach was like, Hey, I really want to, and like, listen, people can call me. I will fly in and talk to the team with you there. If you can explain to the women without any pointed, you know, finger pointing, why this is important that they're tracking their cycle and, you know, giving them just a little bit of information.
00:35:27
Speaker
then the team is collectively thinking like, how does this help me be a more powerful athlete overall? Then it's sort of like an open playing field of positivity versus you walking up to a woman who's like crying in the locker room and being like, do you have your period? this ive met Like not okay. Not okay. And if it doesn't happen direct to the athlete, it quite often happens with the one coach in the back room to the other coaches or finding the assistant female coach and being like, Melody's really like upset and I don't know what to do. is Can you check if she has her period? like it's just not It's not always that simple, right? it's like Melody could feel a hundred other things going on.
00:36:06
Speaker
And then a lot of the high schoolers they have, and colleges especially, probably more so colleges, but athletic trainers. So this is always a good buffer, depending on big the school is. A lot of male, female athletic trainers. So if you're a male head coach or strength coach, usually there's a female athletic trainer, at least within the staff. Somewhere in the mix, yeah. Because of the locker room scenario, yeah. To help navigate the,
00:36:34
Speaker
Yeah, and always pull that person in. And then also don't give that person too much grief if they're not, and they'll be familiar because they have their own cycle potentially, or they have had it. This isn't even a widespread thing always talked about with female coaches to female athletes. It comes up more and it's more managed because I think young female athletes are comfortable with an older female coach to say, oh my God, this is going on in my body, ah right? Because it's like, like-mindedness in the and the female physiology there.
00:37:02
Speaker
A lot of the the football coaches that I had in high school, they also coached one female sport a season. So then they, I recall one coach, he he confided in in me like how tough it was, just the the the stress, of the situation, and he only had boys as a father.
00:37:20
Speaker
and But then like even being a high school coach, because we had a skirt height rule for our public high school, so then like your arms, had it had to be X amount of inches, something like that. And then him as a ah fourth period teacher for a particular class was like, if they come into my class and I don't report them, I get in trouble.
00:37:42
Speaker
If I report them, I get in trouble because now I'm seeing the the length of the skirt and their legs. So he is just like, I'm going to just ignore this. and Never. And then that like perpetuated into him coaching. So it.
00:37:58
Speaker
just not easy for that environment, at least where where I was. So this is helpful for, I mean, just getting comfortable and then leading with solutions and reframing and helping the the females understand as well. Like this can be a mindset of power and opportunity, which I think will lead us to... Yeah, your cycle is your superpower. What happens if you were a male coach and you sit up up front Like, the younger women are, the more they're awkwardly awkward to talk about it. But if you stood up in front of a university crew of at female athletes and you said,
00:38:32
Speaker
I want to be clear, like, yeah, I'm Jack. Welcome to your first day. I just want to be really clear. Like I'm a firm believer in continuing to learn about female menstrual cycle and everything that is so beautiful about it. And it is really your superpower. And I want to check in with you guys, whether you tell me or you got your form or you do whatever, that you're tracking your cycle. So you know what it is because there's so many ways that we can utilize this for you to put more W's on the board. In line with that, I think it's important to educate them as well, is not just say that. like What are some ways that to tailor the training program to really elicit these responses on those theres big, powerful weeks that they have? The first thing is like to to think about mental-emotional. So if you really wanted to parse it down into, you know my friend Kayla is like, there's four weeks in the cycle. There's four different, you're four different people. And I'm like, we're 30 different people, OK? We're different every day.
00:39:23
Speaker
but if you want to parse it down to at least knowing that the first two weeks in a woman's cycle in the last two weeks or maybe into three sex where it's like if I'm in the first two weeks but I'm not bleeding or the last two weeks when I'm not bleeding and then the period as as its own separate thing then there's at least a continuity you can follow which is like I would be training women harder in the first two weeks of their cycle and I would be training them a bit easier in the last two weeks specifically and especially that last week before the period is a better deload week for a specific athlete or a better like rest and recover. They're going to feel more insular. Again, it doesn't mean don't do work, but it's probably not like max lift day. And so how can you, you know, navigate that? Like it would be amazing for a coach to be like, anyone who's in their follicular phase, this is the wad. Anyone who's in the luteal phase, this is the wad. I don't know if that will ever happen, but it's real.
00:40:15
Speaker
Yeah, that's i'm thinking of how to apply this in like in a ah college weight room setting. And then it wouldn't have to affect your training program and just use a inherent periodization model, a rep max model to where we're all working to our heaviest eights, fives, threes. It's just, if you're at this stage, it's your heaviest three. ye It's just not going to be the same three as ah person number two on the team. so Totally, like totally. You're giving them a little bit of a, what is it, prelopins chart. You're like giving them a little lower percentage on that specific time of the month. Yeah, I would have rent ah throw out percentages because then there's potential for that shame following in there. Yeah, true. We're working up to our heaviest three. Yeah. And then in I've heard you say before, like asking what days you're on. I don't know if I'll go that far. No, but you could say if anyone who's in the ludio phase, back half of the cycle, there's plenty of ways to say it as long as you've delineated what the semantics are across the team. Because if you don't clarify what you mean,
00:41:21
Speaker
And also you might mean one thing and the women are like, but this doesn't make sense because their moms or their sisters are aware. So as long as you clarify the language and everybody's speaking the same language, then it's like amazing. who Then it's like you get total comfortability yeah across the coach and the team and everyone being like, okay, high five. I'm on this group today.
00:41:37
Speaker
Yeah, and then, I mean, they, I'm thinking even simplify it, like color code by phase. So then I'm- You're gonna make the period red, aren't you? I literally wrote that on my notes. um So then, yeah, if we're in if we're in red phase, then I'm arranging you on this part of the weight room. So that way I know how to approach you socially and emotionally. And then if it's, you know, the the power phase,
00:42:06
Speaker
then I got this group together and then I'm coaching them a different way. Yeah. So now I can see how to ah just mix that up. Yeah, and like finding names, it's like so beautiful that you said like maybe you have a power phase and the follicular phase is when you're calling it the power phase because that's when they have a bit more like power, authority, confidence, whatever, but you're not saying it's the confidence phase versus the non-confident and you're not calling the back half like the soft phase or, you know, whatever. Maybe it's just like the transition or it's, you know, whatever you decide as a coach that makes sense. I think that that can really work. And then there's some camaraderie there too, right? Women who are going to be in one phase of their cycle are gonna maybe
00:42:43
Speaker
They're neurochemically going to be a little bit more aligned. It's never going to be exact, but a little bit more aligned. And then the biggest notion is, and this is a something that I learned over time, i I had a lot of conversation and even with the women across all ages and landscapes, whether professional, collegiate, or just a recreational athlete, because I believe we're all athletes, but the women that I'm working with, it's like, how do I navigate working with them across all ages and stages so that they feel comfortable with yeah where they're at, what the work is that they're doing. right so So how they can attenuate to where they are in their cycle and
00:43:22
Speaker
For a very long period of time, and I believe a little differently now, I was training women really tightly according to their cycle because there were there are still there's lots of studies around the anti-catabolic nature of estrogen rising in the body in the first two weeks of the cycle, namely like days seven to 16. And how can we use that anti-catabolic nature of estrogen on the rise to build more muscle? Because there are studies that show like 44%, 22% more ability to put muscle on during that window.
00:43:53
Speaker
I think what it comes down to now is because I interviewed Andy Galpin and talked about it and he was, talked a little bit about it, but then was like tightlipped. And, but just because he's a man and he's, he knows all his but he was like, go talk to Lauren Colenso Semple, who was a researcher on the East coast, who's literally doing the the toughest research that there is out there around women because she's blood testing women who are coming in every day.
00:44:16
Speaker
to see exactly what their hormone profile is doing while she tests these kinds of things. And she would say, much to my surprise, and she was actually really happy that I was like, oh my God, I'm kind of, I'm not doing it wrong, but I'm doing it too nuanced, that she would say there's still not enough data in what she's seeing to prove positive that that's real. But what is real is women's power of belief is so strong And when then we feel confident and we feel like ovulating because we're designed, you know, we're designed when we're ovulating to like go out into the tribe and find and all lure the men in because we want to make a baby, right? That's what we're designed to do. That's that's the thing. So when we're feeling empowered and we're feeling really confident, then we should
00:44:58
Speaker
potentially be out living our best life, lifting the heaviest weights, doing those things. So it would make sense that even the mindset that's bolstered by the hormones, even if like the estrogen isn't as a powerful science or research study piece that we're out there leaning in during those first two weeks. So we're going to put more muscle on because we're working harder like you spoke to all the way in the beginning.
00:45:19
Speaker
Where are women working hard? Where are they selling themselves short? Which is another thing we should talk about, but that, we're getting there. Yeah. That, that first two weeks is really like an opportunity to, I think, put more muscle on. Whereas the back half or maybe like the last week is an opportunity to do more accessory movement, work on more mobility, mobilization, like all the lateral movement, whatever the thing is that you need as, as the athlete you are for the sport of context.
00:45:45
Speaker
Yeah, and just from writing a program, like the we need the demands, movements are the demands of sport. So it's there, it's just adjusting the ah the intensity, if you will, yeah for the particular phase here.
00:46:01
Speaker
Yeah, women used to say to me, does that mean I can just work out really, really hard the first two weeks and do nothing the last two weeks of the month? And I was like, no, it's not gonna work. No. And I feel it's important. Like I mentioned earlier, the season schedule is set. So even though you're you're in your luteal phase,
00:46:23
Speaker
i wrote i wrote it as luteel luteel phase you're still gonna have to step up to the plate. Yeah. then do your best. yeah and also say i think there's a moment i think about what i would say in these instances in the in the heat of the moment of competition to an athlete i might have a conversation with a woman that's like yeah we talked about this like your your body hormonally is feeling like It's just not going to quite cut it in the same way, but the reality is like you have a mind and a breathing mechanic that can overcome that. We've worked on this to remind them that they're not at a deficit because they're in a different part of the cycle, right? So I might say those things, pending I've had connection the whole season to that, to someone to be like, you got this, right? You know?
00:47:07
Speaker
We don't do a lot of slapping each other on the ass in the women's locker room, but I think it's the same, you got this, that guys do when they're like, you know, slapping each other in the locker room. Hugging, touching butts, that's what guys do for team bonding. Yeah, of course. I want to get into the, now the self-esteem. So this is ah where a male coach would just aim to say the positive thing, aim to say the right thing and just try to drag them up. How can male coaches appropriately ah
00:47:38
Speaker
encourage self-confidence without just telling them and then having the female athletes just not believe them. I think about it like investing. people invest like guys I see my male friends sometimes like invest in crypto or whatever, they're like,
00:47:57
Speaker
I'm like, oh, they're so, they're risky. Like we are more risk averse as women in general. And so I see men being like, well, I want to invest in that. I'm going to do this. And um at one point I went to Chris Kresser, who's like a fabulous medical doctor, functional medicine doctor. And I was like, Chris, I see everyone investing in this, all these different things. And I just wanted to like ask you, like, how did you know what to invest in? And how did you, and he's like, here's the real deal with men. There's always going to be one or two that actually really know what they're doing. But like Tony's just investing because Juan told them to like, and they're just like shooting from the hip and women. It's like, what supplements do you take? to I'll take that. Totally. And women are like more risk averse, so they're they're not going to like lean in in that in that and that same way. We're going to wait and we're going to scan the landscape and we're going to say, okay, is it time for me to like put, you know, it's like red light therapy on on Ben Greenfield was like red light therapy on my balls every day. And women are like, ah okay, injecting peptides. Okay. Let's just see how that plays out for a while before we we lean into it, knowing that women are going to be more risk averse just innately.
00:48:54
Speaker
and really trying to speak to them from a place of their strong suits, really trying to speak to them an internalization versus external and knowing that it's going to take a little bit more time to build up that athlete potentially. The one thing every male coach should really hear about women versus men because men are just morons we've established here. I mean, then just male athletes tend to show up. Like, here's the thing. If I have put a 400 pound barbell on a rack or on the floor, let's say, so we're being safe, and I tell, you know, a 150 pound soaking wet guy to go pick up that barbell, he's probably going to try. And maybe one part of him thinks he can. and Maybe he could, but, you know, probably not. There's a a study. It's like, which can you survive a bear fight? I forget is exactly what it is. Like, there's a list of animals
00:49:41
Speaker
And the guys are like checking off all of them. All the ones that they could beat. Yeah, I can do it. Yeah. And America is by far the stupidest, but I'll dig that up. But this is the thing. It's like, I'll go pull out, you know, sure, I'll go pull the bar. Like, so men are going to overload a bar and be like, oh, I probably can lift that. And women are going to underload the bar and be like, oh, I think that's about all I can do. That's common. Men are going to walk into a, if you're a male coach too, men are going to walk in and you might, and again, I'm generalizing for all the people who are listening.
00:50:10
Speaker
But a male might come back to you after a really tough training session and be like, whoa, that was like gnarly. Like I was feeling that coach. I was like, I kind of pushed myself. I think I stretched too far. They're going to, they will not take, generally speaking, a victim stand on the way they talk to you about it. Women potentially will come to you and be like,
00:50:29
Speaker
Coach, that practice was like too hard. You like pushed us too far. I hurt you. I got hurt because of what you prescribed in the workout. So really different. Right. And so how do we set up the notion that they are autonomous of their own bodies, but also they need to be grow them into being a little bit less risk averse.
00:50:46
Speaker
right So all that is is going on and then the other big thing male male coaches need to know is that mostly women are getting up in the morning or in the locker room and they're walking around
Psychological Aspects & Self-Perception
00:50:55
Speaker
especially if it's a sport like gymnastics or something where you have to fit into a tight little outfit and we are negative self-talking the out of ourselves. It is just innate ah whether we talk about it being genetic or not where is socialized to be judging ourselves all the time against other women, against what we see in a magazine, against what we see on TV, against what whatever, right? And and while i I'm not marginalizing that men may have that second guessing of themselves, especially just going through puberty and being like, how come Tony's got a full list of happening with my nephew? There's guys on his hockey team at like 12, 13 that have like facial hair.
00:51:29
Speaker
and And my nephew is still like has this high-pitched voice and spiky hair and has really soft features. and so how do we not The judgments are going to always happen, self-judgment. But women are really doing it to a level that is you know creating body dysmorphia, creating some like mental challenges when it comes to their mental health. But the comparison trap is like the thief of all their joy. So those things happening together, we need to continually be bolstering them, I think, specifically from an internal like Here's what you're doing really well. Women really respond well to compliments, not false compliments, and definitely not physical compliments, because as men, male coaches need to be careful. That's probably a lie. Yeah. Yeah. So talking about the inside, talking about the way they're showing up for the team, talking about attitude, really getting their buy-in on the things they're doing well, that they're sharing that amongst the team, can be super helpful to help kind of build on that. And putting more value on that than maybe the image.
00:52:24
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, and you can walk into a male athlete locker room and like the least fit guy on the team who's like covered in pimples can just be like, I rock today. Like you just see that. You just don't see it as much with, with the women, even if they're the strongest player on the team, they don't necessarily always know it. Well, that, that they may feel shame on that because now oh I'm getting too strong.
00:52:45
Speaker
yeah So ah yeah, I used to be I was put into advanced classes in um middle school, like they would move me up a grade for certain classes or put me in advanced classes. And I would tell all my guy friends and some of my other female friends that my mom wrote letters and made the teachers and the principal put me in those classes because I didn't want them to know that I was like doing well or smart so smart that I was being moved. Cause it was like ostracizing myself. I felt separate and we all want to feel connection, right? So that, that example happens amongst the team all the time. Yeah. Yeah. What are some signs that coaches on, you know, on, uh,
00:53:23
Speaker
just they they don't know what to look for. What are male coaches? They don't know what to look for. So what are some potential signs of of the low self-esteem or the stories like the like the the letter ah that you gave? So what are some examples yeah coaches can look for that may be signs of self-esteem trouble which if not addressed could manifest in something even dangerous for their health. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, that really obvious ones are going to be like with attitudinal stuff on the team. Like if there's a bit of bullying on the debt like to someone else on the team or a bit of like
00:53:59
Speaker
fostering into a bit a c click of girls that's then potentially like either making fun of or busting chops of the other girls. like You're going to have two issues. You're going to have the person who's leading the one pack is actually navigating some kind of self-esteem thing, even if they have like rooster chests about it, because they're that's probably coming off of insecurity.
00:54:15
Speaker
And, and also they're not being very kind. And then there's another group of women or maybe one particular person who's being singled out. And that person is so there's some of that, that attitude it on the team or that external stuff from other people you're going to see it.
00:54:29
Speaker
the other thing that is It will be obvious if you start to learn to read the people on your team as nervous systems in space before anything else. And by that I just mean, you earlier were talking about pasterole, you can see if someone's sort of in this like they're feeling low about themselves. If they're sitting alone on the bench, I mean there's emotionality that might come up, right? That's also an easy sign if someone's getting teary-eyed or choked up. um Yeah, like dry mouth, sweaty hands. It'll, it'll mimic some of the feelings that would come up could mimic what happens like before, like on a competition day. Right. And so like noticing those signs and symptoms crack in the throat and they talk to you a lot of nervous energy, things like that could really, couldn't really be telltale. And that's again, something that
00:55:13
Speaker
you learn over time of watching more and more women as nervous systems in space, you know? And we're all awkward from those ages in so many ways, so it's it's going to present and in different ways, but it's like how do we look at the bodies in space to say where what's the landscape of the people that are in front of me as opposed to just looking at them as an athlete that's supposed to be completing a task and at what pace are they completing the task and what you know what time, what's their performance. So how do we sort of take a little bit of a backseat and take in the landscape from a larger perspective of what that
00:55:44
Speaker
my body's doing from a nervous system standpoint. And it's important because you as a coach can co-regulate with your athlete, right? Professionally and in an appropriate way, you can co-regulate by sitting with someone. Some of the better coaches I've ever worked in in my life, actually male coaches, if I was having like a moment of something, would just be like, yo, I'm going to sit right here next to you, right? And we're just, if you want to talk, I'm like here, let's just spend five minutes like, just like,
00:56:10
Speaker
vibing or thinking or breathing or just sitting up against this wall. It doesn't have to be some big like therapy session. to let the female athlete know like, yo, I'm here, I got you. I'm not sitting in front of you or behind you. I'm just next to you. So it's very safe, right? There's no like, I'm going to stare at you until you tell me an answer. And making me feel like, okay, I can be comfortable. One specific quote, coach, I was like, I'm going to sit here for five minutes. And there was like a crossfit clock on the wall. And I sat there like a stubborn young woman for like four minutes and 45 seconds. And then I was like,
00:56:43
Speaker
finally broke down a little and talked to him and was like, oh, here's what's going on. Because I was like, I'm going to watch the book for five minutes, you know, whatever. But him just sitting there, disarming me and disarming me and and being real comfortable, just like by not saying anything and not feeling nervous, got me to be like, okay, I'm calming down a little bit emotionally. This is passing through me. I do want to say something. Am I nervous to say something? Yes.
00:57:05
Speaker
wait another minute and then say something. There's a lot of this waiting game, right? There's a lot of this, which has to happen sometimes at office hours or outside of practice because we know how practice is, right? You have like five minutes to do each task.
00:57:18
Speaker
it's important to empower the coach now to step in. So what are some signs, I mean, even connected with the menstrual cycle, this the female triad, like those are the big buzzwords that male coaches learn yeah yeah when helping navigate health issues for female athletes. So. Yeah, you want to talk a little bit about the female triad as you see it.
00:57:40
Speaker
Yeah, like how, what are some, I guess, physical signs? Because from my, I'm trying to remember from learning this in college, like there's an increase in performance when like eating disorders start to manifest. So then now their decisions are reinforced because their performance increases. But then that's when- Yeah, at the onset there will typically be an increase in performance because there's a control mechanism that's changing their mindset that they're like, wow.
00:58:09
Speaker
me starving myself out or binging and purging is actually working. I feel stronger because I feel like I'm really controlling the narrative, right? And perhaps nobody's noticing, so I'm getting away with it. And again, it's like, none of it's like, you know,
00:58:26
Speaker
these are all women just trying to control something because there are other uncontrollables in their life. And so there will be at the onset, there could be like a performance increase, but this doesn't mean every athlete that has that, perhaps you have an athlete that's really vibing with you as a coach and they're getting better. So noticing what's going on with the physicality, because there will be a drop off, especially if we're talking about food, right? Where there's not enough calories in the system and it starts to be like, they're not getting magnesium, they're not getting min minerals and micronutrients and they're like getting dark circles under their eyes or they're not sleeping as well.
00:58:55
Speaker
Um, I think like, yeah, like, you know, feeling, uh, having, in fighting with the teams, having so much more with female athletes than it does with males. It's so interesting. It doesn't mean it doesn't happen. It's just women nitpicking on each other and kind of clinging, ganging up on each other and little things going on that are clicks and whatnot.
00:59:13
Speaker
So just like watching some of those groups, I also find that there have been several instances where women are kind of doing that in packs. So like three of them, four of them have made a pack to eat less or to only eat at whatever two hour window and check in with each other. And so noticing that some of those things can go on on the team. Um, yeah. And I think, you know, we ha you have to, as a coach, be watching female bodies. I know that there's this thing, like you talked about with the skirt that it's,
00:59:40
Speaker
you know You're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't. But you you can start to see when malnutrition happens, like in the face, in the skin tone, in the color of the eyes. Yeah, that that's what to look for as well. And then, I mean, it's easy with males, like we're going to weigh in. And this is, again, maybe this is an important part of the conversation because with male athletes, we're going to weigh in when we walk in the weight room.
Nutrition, Health & Parental Role
01:00:02
Speaker
And then we're going to weigh in when we check out, especially during summer training, because now we can see hydration levels and its feedback for them to say, hey, I'm not drinking enough water yeah because I lost three pounds during this workout. Now, I... I would be just holding back and say, you know, we're not going to weigh our female athletes because I'm too afraid of connecting weight to this and then causing something to understand. So like, I mean, but.
01:00:32
Speaker
educating the importance of weight and hydration versus weight and what the rest of the world thinks weight is. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Weight and hydration and weight and protein, meaning weight and muscle mass. Yeah. That's the explanation about here's what five pounds of muscle looks like and here's what five pound of fat looks like. That's a good one. And understanding that it's like tighter, leaner, smaller, and you could still weigh more and be fitter than you were before, right? Like you could be in a smaller frame and also have more weight so that it doesn't This is why like I don't, I'm not in charge of the all the way and stuff that happens with coaches typically, right? But when I am in charge of it, I put women in like DEXAs or on like, I'm in body scans because what I want to do is is create the the understanding or and people still panic about body fat percentage, but I want to be like, what's the lean muscle mass that's on you? How is everything feeling from a bone density standpoint? I want to celebrate the things to be celebrated.
01:01:23
Speaker
And some schools don't have the budget to do that. They're just like, get on the scale, check in with your metrics, right? um so So I think it's like we do the best we can do. I have definitely still been in the situation where I'm presenting on nutrition, because I'm like a nutrition specialist, so I can do all that, and talking about getting the right protein content, because that is so important. And I'm like, if even if female athletes are suffering from other things, I want them to have the right protein.
01:01:47
Speaker
and and then being accused on the back end by someone who's already with body dysmorphia and an eating disorder being accused on the back end that I'm telling them what to eat and it's more than they want and it feels not okay and probably in the back of their mind they think I'm going to make them fat with what I've told them, right? That's the that's the notion in their mind and so i ah you can continue to do it as kindly as you can and as professionally as you can and there still may be things that that show up and you know this more than I do which is, you know, you want to be able to rely on parents. And then often you have to, you end up battling the parents or the parents have a different notion or they're not seeing what's going on or they, you know, parents can be a win and parents can be a challenge. So it just depends on what's going on in the, in the home life as well. Or if they believe that they're their, their daughter is starving themselves out or not. And there's lots of tricks like, you know, uh, many teams will put out snacks. So you could very easily just be like, who's not going for the snacks at all? Who's not drinking anything?
01:02:44
Speaker
If you come across anything that feels or looks like um diet pills, diuretics, I mean, you know, I've been through that in my life where I'm just like, I will just take so many diuretics that I would be like stuck in a house for Friday and Saturday because I think, well, I'll be lighter by Sunday. It's not cute, the things that people do, right? But the reality is like all of that stuff is happening. So you've got to just have your eyeballs open to it. Especially with weight class sports. Oh, for sure. Yeah. For sure.
01:03:11
Speaker
Yeah, we don't sit in the back of the class with tin foil and eight sweatsuits and spit in a soda can. We're just like, moron I'm going to stop eating. parental and involvement, this this is important. what role do you feel parents play in the developmental changes for female athletes?
01:03:31
Speaker
Should they be having these conversations? I mean, it's not safe to assume that they're getting it at home. It's not safe to assume they're getting it at home. And I want to say that every parent should have that conversation, even if it's two dads or two moms or a triumvirate, or they don't know anything about it. They should be having... This is a should. I'm shitting all of our parents.
01:03:50
Speaker
who am I to tell them what they do with their kids? But if we don't educate our own children and if you're out, especially if you're learning about this in a podcast and you're coaching and you have kids, this is a prime opportunity to be able to talk about, you know, I want parents to speak openly about sport, about food and nutrition, about, you know, menstrual cycle, monthly cycle, reproduction, sex, all of it. I want, I want that in the home. I just don't think it's always happening. And I, it's not always the parents fault. Maybe their parents didn't talk to them about it. Maybe it's cultural, you know, there's a number of things. So
01:04:20
Speaker
We have to somehow institute the to the best of our ability. This is why I think it's so great when schools have a school psychologist who does like a cultural meeting or does a psychology meeting with the team a couple times a month. It's just a check-in and maybe it's someone who's really trusted by the team to have conversations so that they they know they can go to someone if there's no one else, right? And to fill that parental gap. and And we want that as coaches. We want them to come to us.
01:04:46
Speaker
But are they going to always? No. And so the the short answer is yes, I want parents to be educating on that. And maybe the parents don't know that one grandma poaching to one grand body weight is the answer. So then how can we educate them? And how can we, with some kids' gloves, let parents know, hey, there's a little orange flag that maybe there's some things going on without, yeah, making the parents feel like we're butting in or... Yeah. Yeah, it's a dance.
01:05:12
Speaker
It is a dance. I think that education is an opportunity to start a conversation and then maybe let the, yeah, educating the girl dads on what to look for. Totally. So then that could help ah a lot, especially the expectation with expectations. Yeah. I had an awesome conversation with ah psychiatrist Brad Kennington, episode 12. Cool. Yeah, but he talked about the, I guess, the the family dynamic and sport.
01:05:41
Speaker
Parents project on athletes, parents project on coaches, kids project on parents naturally, and then kids project up to coach, especially if it's ah a female athlete and a male coach, just the the family dynamic there. So understanding what is ah going on in the household, maybe you don't have a clear channel of communication there.
01:06:04
Speaker
or aiming to educate on ah expectations or even bodily functions, et cetera, that the dad may just be playing earmuffs to. Yeah, there's a lot of opportunity there, and I feel education can help bridge the gap, which was motivation for this yeah episode. I do want to speak to performance, so I do have online training, a program called Old Bull, and I got some bells on there.
01:06:29
Speaker
I don't want to insult the women on there, so referring to them as bells. ah So B-E-L-L-E-S. ah Yeah, love it. there's an opportunity here because how I operate is it's a choose your own adventure, but you can organize and select which workout to do on which day. And within there are schemes.
01:06:52
Speaker
certain movements have rep schemes. If you're feeling this today, you're going to go for 6 to 10, or 10 to 15, or et cetera. So give them the opportunity. If they're feeling it today, I want you green light go. yeah So now I feel a lot of this conversation has helped put them in a position to target which rep schemes they're going for.
Adapting Training for Older Athletes
01:07:17
Speaker
I guess from the, respect to what we've talked about thus far, to the older female athletes with kids, life, stress, and still continuing to train hard. What else changes within respect to what we've talked about here now for our more experienced female athlete with life? I think it's it's really nice that you're dividing and giving some division and some choose your own adventure because I think that's much needed, right? we
01:07:48
Speaker
women specifically, we're not so great all the time at sort of self assessing or interoceptive awareness, just like laying down for five minutes and be like, what's going on in my body? I see this a lot when I put women in the cold that they're not even realizing how stressed they are until they get in the cold and then they like have a cry. And they're like, I don't even know why that came up. Well, you're an entrepreneur with 120 employees and three kids and your husband's off on his business trip. And it's like, it's obvious to me, but it's, it's, we're all holding it so much. So what do we sort of need for that day for like, you know,
01:08:18
Speaker
where is our allostatic load, our current stress level versus what do we need to be applying as a minimum effective dose of stress, whether it be like training or ice or breath or whatever it might be, strength and conditioning, so that we feel like we've succeeded for the day. And sometimes it's not an ice bath I put someone in, it's like, go do a hot bath, like you need to chill. But when it comes to to training, and especially I see this as women are getting older as well,
01:08:43
Speaker
Because we have this like probably putting a little too little weight on the bar, right unless we're like highly coached in a good way for a number of years, we we we under we underserve ourselves. And so a lot of women show up to me and they're just going to always be doing 15, 20 reps of something that's too light. And I think When I'm tired, I'd rather put up five to eight reps of really heavy weight to see if I can just like nail that and be done versus multiple reps. I think, you know, you can slice it a lot of different ways, but the way that we lose quite often is by not putting enough. We're not racking enough. And so if you can do your five to eight reps and rack more than rack more, we're we're
01:09:25
Speaker
if I have one more woman, like I have 30 year old women that come to me that are like, it's all downhill from here. And I'm like, okay, no, none of that's real. What we see, there's research. What we see is that people just eat more crap and are more sedentary as they get older. And so how do we make sure that we're fighting against that? And I interviewed Dr. Stacy Sims, who's like a pivotal um endurance athlete and researcher and and doctor who just like gets it. And the number one thing she's like, lean in, you have to lift heavy That's our like tagline, lift heavy women, because that's where we're at. And I think that that's not just for women as they're aging. I think it's when we have these high school or collegiate athletes, of course, we're as coaches going to make sure that people are safe or spotted, but really getting women to reframe how they're lifting in a way that's like, could you?
01:10:12
Speaker
Add the five more pounds on each side? Could you? Like cheering them on and making it be sort of like an adventure or fun or an experience? Because I think what that underpinning of that is, is that women don't want to like, we don't want to fail. Like there's that failure thing.
01:10:27
Speaker
where I think that fail faster mentality, like with men, they're just like, oh, OK, tomorrow, I'll come back again tomorrow. There's something that can, again, with the risks they're willing to take, they're like, OK, the more we learn how to fail at things, and that includes weightlifting, the better we get faster. right This is like an old Tony Shea from Zappos thing. It's like, how do we fail faster? So we get real comfortable at it.
01:10:48
Speaker
um A woman, her name escapes me, wrote this book on fear. She's an ex-pro athlete, you know, adventure seeker, phenom. I'll send you the book. That's how I want to be defined. Yeah, she's like wild. And she's like, our problem is fear. We step back from it. I want to teach people how to say, oh, that feels scary or here's this fear that's rising, I want to go chase fear to see how I can you know navigate it or bolster it or to see where I'm calling it like where i'm lying to myself. that It actually wasn't even something that was that scary, but I've set up this whole story in my psyche how it's scary. So I think the biggest thing just coming back to like all the athletes when it comes to lifting weights, and you see this all the time, ah the stronger a female athlete gets, the more she can
01:11:36
Speaker
Let's say she puts up 20 pounds more than she ever expected that week she could. you walk away, like you get out from under that bar, you walk away and you're like, damn, I can do more than I thought. Like there's a level of confidence and self-assuredness and self-esteem that lives in the body then that's completely physicalized. And that bleeds right into the world, right? Into their jobs, into schooling, into everything else that's going on, right? Study faster, get better grades. All those things can happen because they're feeling more self-assured about it. So at any age, and when I don't want to deal with women that are like perimenopausal, menopausal. It's like,
01:12:09
Speaker
stop saying you can't do this stuff anymore.
Nutrition & Performance Recommendations
01:12:11
Speaker
Like maybe, yeah, maybe you're doing master's weight at your CrossFit thing or whatever, but go and lift it, go and do the thing. It's like not time to give up on yourself because we have so much capacity and chances are they're just like not eating enough protein and not taking care of themselves asleep. So we'll finish on that note then. What's the big, what's the protein recommendation? One gram per pound body weight?
01:12:33
Speaker
Yeah, one I would say for anyone who's like up to like a 25-year-old, one gram per pound of body weight, one gram of protein, I always mistranslate it when it's in. you know and but We're an imperial, but when we get to metric. um But I also think, ah ah not I think, I know that as women age, as men and women age, we'd need more protein, too. So you start to get 40 plus. You need to be upping your protein intake even more, because the body is not absorbing it as well, utilizing it as well, all that. so like it's it's they say as aging population, 14 to 70 or whatever, maybe it's like 1.5 grams of protein. Like we're we're working towards that. And I don't really believe in like, you can eat too much protein. I run out of hunger where I'm like, I just can't eat anymore before I run out of like, oh, I can't, I need to get, you know, three X protein in my body. You know, so good for you. So satiating. So it helps you sleep, helps you with, yeah. Recomp your body. So number one, luer nurient I always lean into.
01:13:30
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Big fans of protein over here. All right. We've covered a lot of bases. We covered a lot. How can people learn more about your work or reach out to you if they want to and learn more or dive deeper into some of our topics here? Yeah, for sure. this famed word, biohacking. So I have an Instagram handle. I answer my own DMs just for any questions off the cuff. It's like biohacking dot.breath dot.cold. That's the best way to kind of find me if you're just like, I have a quick question, I don't know what this is, um or you want more context. And then sherpa-breathandcold.com is all my performance breathing, cold adaptation work,
01:14:08
Speaker
All the things we're doing with sports and university teams in that regard, I try to stay in my lane. And and i do I do coach some nutrition and some female cycle stuff too.
Empowerment & Education Initiatives
01:14:16
Speaker
um And then WellPower.Life is where I'm working with women, typically amateur athletes, like let's say 30 to 60 years old. And um WellPower is the program that I work with those women. So they feel a little less intimidated by all the athletics. Yeah. And Empower to to take on their tests. Yeah.
01:14:35
Speaker
I learned a lot, I took a lot of notes. I feel more right confident. yeah And then how I would manage a weight room to then optimize and then aim to just break down any social barriers. So that way they feel empowered and then, yeah, puts them in a position where you step on the field and then it's ready, ready.
01:14:57
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And if anyone's listening and super nerdy about this, like I put together six or seven slides that I've shared with a few universities, coaches, athletic directors that are just like on female performance. And I'm like, I'm happy to just like fire this off to anyone who's like, yeah, here's my email. I really want those because I want us to be able to all do this together, right? Like I'm one person, I can't get to every school, every coach, every team. It's like the more that I can empower male coaches specifically to get out and get after it with these female athletes, the better that we all. We all end up, right? then More W's on the board. That's it. Yeah. And going pro, that's something other than sports in life, and you still maintain the confidence and the healthy relationship with weight training, fitness, eating meat, all the good stuff. Yeah, love it.
01:15:43
Speaker
Cool. All right. Thank you very much. Yeah, thanks for having me. ah Awkward ending to the show, but thank you. Bye.
Conclusion & Call to Action
01:15:51
Speaker
Thank you for joining me for another episode of the Captains and Coaches Podcast. Be sure to give Kristen a follow and reach out if you have any questions about the information we provided. She's got amazing presentation out there that sums it up with beautiful displays, slides, and all that good stuff. If you like this episode, if you like the show, be sure to subscribe. Give us a rating and review and look for new episodes every Wednesday. We'll see you next time. Bye.