Courtesy: Swimming Australia
Swimming Australia and fertility and women’s health experts, City Fertility want their collaboration to result in more gold for the Australian women’s swimming team.
A key component of our partnership is the development of an educational program, the Ignite Athlete Female Health and Wellbeing Program.
Star Dolphins trio Cate Campbell, Katja Dedekind and Madi Wilson have officially joined the program as its inaugural ambassadors.
Currently, women’s athlete programs do little to best manage female physiological difference or to incorporate their specific well-being and hormones differences into training and competition programs.
Gold-medal swimmer, Cate Campbell said it is no secret, hormonal and reproduction cycles impact female athletes and this new partnership would change Australian Swimming’s approach to coaching and supporting female swimmers.
“Knowledge is power. If we can modify our training to better suit our body timings, and if we give female physiology and hormones a greater focus, our trainers are confident it will lift the team’s performance.
“Shockingly, only six per cent of exercise and athletic health research globally is dedicated specifically to women. I find it hard to fathom, with all the technical improvements and know-how in sport, so very little is known about how hormones impact and change a female athlete’s performance.
“At the elite level, there’s not much between winning and placing in a race so if this research and education can give an athlete even one hundredth of a second extra, then it is worth it.”
Swimming teammate, Madi Wilson said female physical characteristics also affect psychological preparation before a big race.
“There are so many changes for a woman week to week, month to month – so knowing how to better harness it and use to our advantage could be very powerful,” Madi said. “It could be a leg up for the team.”
City Fertility’s Dr Tiarna Ernst said, based on research, we think that female and male reproductive hormones could influence athletes sporting performance, training, and likelihood of injuries.
“Some female athletes may also be more likely to have reproduction health problems later in life,” Dr Ernst said.
“We hope by working with elite athletes from a young age, we can better manage, even prevent some issues from occurring.”