2023 was a great year for books about women in sport and by women in sport. One of my favorites was Up to Speed: The Groundbreaking Science of Women Athletes by Christine Yu. I had the opportunity to chat with Christine via Zoom and to ask her some questions about her research and experiences.
If you haven’t read, Up to Speed, here’s a synopsis:
“Over the last fifty years, women have made extraordinary advances in athletics. More women than ever are playing sports and staying active longer. Whether they’re elite athletes looking for an edge or enthusiastic amateurs, women deserve a culture of sports that helps them thrive: training programs and equipment designed to work with their bodies, as well as guidelines for nutrition and injury prevention that are based in science and tailored to their lived experience.
Yet too often the guidance women receive is based on research that fails to consider their experiences or their bodies. So much of what we take as gospel about exercise and sports science is based solely on studies of men.
The good news is that this is finally changing. Researchers are creating more inclusive studies to close the gender data gap. They’re examining the ways women can boost athletic performance, reduce injury, and stay healthy.
Sports and health journalist Christine Yu disentangles myth and gender bias from real science, making the case for new approaches that can help women athletes excel at every stage of life, from adolescence to adulthood, through pregnancy, menopause, and beyond. She explains the latest research and celebrates the researchers, athletes, and advocates pushing back against the status quo and proposing better solutions to improve the active and athletic lives of women and girls.”
I met Christine last fall when she was home recovering from an ACL surgery. As an avid runner, soccer player and skier, she was looking forward getting back to the action she loves and covers. I really enjoyed this book and found myself wondering why we haven’t made more progress in some of these areas. It was such a cool opportunity to speak to Christine and to ask her what I was wondering about while reading!
We’re going to send one lucky reader a copy of Up to Speed. To enter to win, read my interview with Christine Yu that follows and leave a comment on which stage of life or aspect of our discussion you’re most interested in or what question you’d ask her. For an extra entry, follow Christine Yu on Instagram and leave a second comment with your Instagram handle. I will select a winner in order of comment with Random Number Generator on February 20.
Q & A with Christine Yu.
EA – Why was this topic important to cover and how did you get started on it?
CY – As a sports and health journalist, I was covering an event in 2019 about the Female Athlete Triad (Nutrition/Menstrual Health/Bone Health). I was in my mid-30s and was shocked by how little I knew about women’s health, menstrual cycles and the impact of hormones on bone health… I was kind of angry. Especially not to know this when I was younger to guide my athletic life.
It felt like we would touch on topics of women’s health, sports science and performance and things like bone stress and eating disorders. There would be calls to action and then the stories died out. I wondered ‘why aren’t we doing something?’ ‘why aren’t we moving forward?’ I wanted to understand the barriers and obstacles to understanding and improving female athlete health and performance.
EA – Why isn’t there more investment and research on women in sport?
CY – I don’t think it’s necessarily intentional or malicious… It seems that this is the way systems were developed. Men were athletes and they were competing. They were studied first and became the standard. This is just ‘how we do things.’ Much of the research was done on young, healthy, white men. There wasn’t much thought on who was marginalized.
In some cases, we treated women like small men. It wasn’t nuanced. The assumption was that what worked for men would translate and work for women. People were thinking about commonalities between the sexes. No one asked the question, ‘what may be different for women?’ In some cases, the initial assumptions may hold up but we need to ask the questions.
EA – Our experience guides our interested. I noticed that you have a chapter on ACL injuries and the difference between men and women. I was very interested in the chapter about perimenopause and menopause. Are your experiences with injuries and changing hormones directing your research?
CY – It’s traditionally not been ‘polite’ to talk about periods, pregnancy and postpartum issues and menopause. Many women that I know have frustration about our bodies as we age. As we slow down, we wonder if we just have to accept it and go slower or stop participating in athletics. It doesn’t have to be this way.
Aging and menopause are akin to puberty. It’s a huge adjustment…It’s a new body and a new stage of life. We need to have grace, patience and recalibration. We need to recalibrate without losing the joy of the activities we love.
EA – With all of the information (and misinformation) out there, how do you decide what studies and concepts to include in your work and what to avoid/debunk?
CY – I look at the work of leaders in the field and see what they share and comment on. Social media makes things tough. We need to be critical consumers of information and look at who is posting and what their qualifications are. Look critically at their sources.
Look at what bubbles up and dig in to it critically. Does this seem real? A large part of the population is not science literate. The sports and wellness world is rife with misinformation. You have to find a credible way to communicate and cut through the noise.
EA – One of the most interesting topics in the book to me was the impact of concussions on women and girls versus men. I was wondering how you came upon that information.
CY – I was looking at injuries where there were big differences between men and women. Three main buckets emerged. They were: ACL/Knee injuries, concussions and bone stress injuries. The bone stress injuries were woven throughout.
Women are more prone to ACL injuries. The thinking was always that the shape of women’s hips, physiology and hormones caused this. It’s because of women’s bodies. That was the prevailing story. Then, it turned out that movement patterns in training can have a big impact.
Similarly for concussions, the time to treatment is a factor. Boys sports had more funding and were more likely to have a trainer or medical personnel at games.
For these two (and likely others), we have to look at the macro environment and look at things with a different lens.
EA – What was the most surprising this you found while researching this book?
CY – Probably sports bras. We’ve all heard the that in 1977 women sewed two jock straps together to make a sports bra. The surprising thing is that until very recently, no one studied breast biomechanics. It makes sense that most women never found a comfortable solution and just ‘made do.’ We didn’t consider athletic performance. We just ‘strapped them down.’ There’s a huge impact to comfort and enjoyment of sport.
There was a similar story about bike seats and serious injuries to professional female cyclists.
EA – Why do you think this is the case?
CY – Women’s sport is still pretty young… We’ve been able to do a lot with the deck stacked against us. Women’s sport hasn’t always been appreciated or prioritized. We need to continue to push the conversation on what it takes to improve female athlete and performance. This is not only about allowing girls and women to perform well but about creating a long-term athletic life for women. So that women can get involved and stay involved in sport.
I could have chatted with Christine all day. Here are many more reviews and interviews that you can check out. You can also follow her on Instagram.