A fantastic listen that I highly recommend from The Game Changers Podcast.
Dr Emma Ross - the former Head of Physiology at the English Institute of Sport where she led the smartHER progamme, educating coaches and athletes about the female body in high performance sport - is transforming the way women talk about their bodies.
Emma’s worked with everyone from elite athletes and top coaches through to head teachers and schoolgirls - passionate about making sport a better environment for all women. In 2020 Emma co-founded The Well HQ, an organisation that educates and empowers women to understand their bodies and use that knowledge to thrive in sport, health and life. In recognition of all she is doing for the wellbeing of women and girls, in 2021 Emma received the Sunday Times Sports Women of the Year Changemaker Award.
In this important episode we explore the lack of female focused sports science research and why that matters for women of all ages. Emma shares her journey from education to applied sports science at the English Institute of Sport to all she is doing today with the Well HQ.
They talk about the challenges facing male coaches working with young female athletes, how some sports are finally having conversations about women’s bodies that have been deemed taboo for decades but also recognise that one football club talking openly about tracking players’ periods doesn’t mean we’ve solved the problem across sport.