‘Be hungry for knowledge’: How FASTR is Closing the Gender Gap in Sports Science

…..As an epidemiology Ph.D. candidate, Roche studied female athlete health. While Roche says that female participation in sport is “growing and booming,” the research isn’t following as fast. Only 6% of sports science research focuses on female athletes, according to University of Chester Senior Lecturer Dr. Sam Moss. Roche says that there are plenty of factors that have contributed to this disparity……

….. Another factor is that researchers are hesitant to engage with female physiology, due to how hard it is to control for the menstrual cycle’s impact on performance-based studies. 

“[The menstrual cycle] has been thought of as a confounding variable for a long period of time,” said Roche.  

But, to Roche, that isn’t enough of a reason to back off from this research. “I think the more that we dive into menstrual-specific research, we’re realizing that it’s not as related to performance as directly as we thought it is and that it’s better to include to female athletes in studies than exclude them due to factors like the menstrual cycle.” ….. 

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Bethany`s Notes: A great read on how most scientific studies are based on men and how researchers are trying to close that gap.