Make Female Athletes Empowered Again

15 Nov Make Female Athletes Empowered Again

Female empowerment needs to be re-defined.

There’s a lot of fear mongering going on in girls sports that’s actually dis-empowering female athletes.

“You have wide hips!”

“You’re more susceptible to ACL injuries!”

“Your period and menstrual cycle increases injury!”

These are some of the defeating messages our girls are being blasted with on a weekly basis. And sadly, it’s coming from coaches and the people who need to lead the way to actually empower female athletes.

True Female Empowerment

Female athletes aren’t broken. And while there are anatomical and hormonal differences in female vs. male athletes, this doesn’t mean these differences have to hold girls back. In fact, it’s the opposite.

We can blame wide hips and periods, or we can find solutions that are in a female athlete’s control.

And the good news is, there ARE things girls can control to perform at a high level and stay healthy for the length of their sports careers.

For the sake of brevity, here are several things that female athletes can do:

1. Strength train consistently to make bones, joints, and muscles durable to injury.

2. Have 1-2 full days off from practices, trainings, and games to avoid overuse injury.

3. Eat healthy fats to reduce menstrual cycle inflammation and improve brain function.

4. Up protein to improve muscle strength and to speed up recovery time.

5. Add in quality carbs from whole foods (potatoes, berries, raw honey, rice, vegetables)

6. Decrease excess caffeine intake, high sugar and ultra processed foods to improve menstrual symptoms, reduce digestive issues, and reduce joint and muscle inflammation.

7. Up calories and energy availability to prevent stress fractures, overuse, chronic fatigue, and menstrual disorders.

We must re-define female empowerment.

We must encourage our girls to lean into the fact that they are female, that their unique anatomical and hormonal traits do not need to hinder them, and they can control many factors in their performance and health.

Make female athletes empowered again.

For more details on the benefits of strength training, proper nutrition, and recovery, get my book Female Athlete High Performance