The Invisible Sportswoman: Rethinking Exercise Science for Women and Girls at Every Age | Ep. 288 - The Aging Well Podcast

Episode Transcript
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(00:03):
Most of what we know about exercise science is based on
young, athletic men. But women are not small men, and
when research ignores their unique Physiology, health
outcomes suffer. Welcome to the Aging World
podcast where we explore the science stories and strategies
behind living a longer, healthier, and more purposeful
life. I am your host, Doctor Jeff
Armstrong, and exercise physiologist for the passion for

(00:25):
making science simple and life better as we age.
My guest is Doctor Anne McCauley.
She's a postdoctoral researcher at the SHE Research Center in
Ireland and a rising leader in Women's Health research.
She's also the lead of the Invisible Sportswoman
International Research Collective and part of Me Day, a
groundbreaking all island consortium working to recenter

(00:46):
women and girls in sport, exercise and Health Science.
In this conversation, we'll talkabout the gender gap in exercise
Physiology, why midlife and aging women have been
underserved by mainstream research, and what's finally
being done to change that. Emma's work is not about filling
the gaps, it's about helping women move, feel, and age well.

(01:07):
The Aging Well podcast encourages informed decision
making and always consult your physician and scientific
literature when making decisionsabout your health.
Emma, welcome to the Aging Well podcast.
Let's start by having you tell us a little bit about yourself
and really what led you into thefield of Women's Health and

(01:27):
exercise science. Hey, well, yeah, thank you so
much for having me on. This is really exciting and
nice. So I did my undergrad in PE and
biology. I, I mean, I was an active kid,
but I wasn't, you know, I, I enjoyed PE, I enjoyed PE And so
that's why I kind of thought that that would be what I would
like to do as my career. And then as part of the PE

(01:50):
undergraduate program, you had to do a placement in schools.
And I loved that. Except the majority of girls
would bring in notes to say theycouldn't take part in PE because
they had their period or they couldn't take part in PE because
they forgot their uniform. And I think, you know, I saw
really grace PE teachers, but they were kind of stuck in this

(02:11):
structure at the time of teaching really traditional
sports on a curriculum that didn't really allow them to
engage people who weren't particularly sporty.
It's not that they didn't want to be active, but they just
didn't want to play football or they didn't want to play
basketball. They wanted to move, but the
kind of the curriculum didn't allow for that.
So I went, I decided, OK, well, maybe I couldn't fit into that

(02:35):
as a P/E teacher, but maybe I'd like to understand that more and
kind of go down the research side.
So I did a Masters and, and thenI did my PhD and that focused on
physical activity for teenage girls.
And I think quickly into the PhD, I realized as maybe it's
not so much about just having a physical activity intervention

(02:57):
for 12 weeks to increase accelerometer based physical
activity. I think one of my mentors, Dr.
Paula Watson, was a is a sports psychologist and she came on as
one of my mentors and kind of talked about how maybe it's
about first changing girls understanding about what
physical activity and exercise in sport means.

(03:17):
And if we can just give them a bit more of a positive
experience. Let them know that going on a
hike or doing a yoga class or walking the dog, there are all
types of physical activity and exercise.
And if we can just slowly start to shift their mindsets to
moving their bodies, being more positive, then maybe those

(03:37):
accelerometer changes would comedown the line.
And I think during that PhD, obviously I was reading a lot of
literature about girls in, you know, sport and exercise,
exercise science journals, but Ikind of realized there wasn't
all that much. And that kind of brought me to
the Costello paper, which was that initial kind of sex audit

(04:00):
in sport and exercise science and subsequently on to invisible
sportswomen. So what is the story behind the
Invisible Sportswoman Research Collective and what does the
name mean? Well, I guess it came from
reading the Costello paper, and I always get this reference.
I don't know if it's 2013 or two, but but it's around that

(04:22):
time period. And basically, they found that
there was a huge deficit in the number of women involved in
sport and exercise science studies as participants.
And, you know, Fast forward to 2020, I thought, Oh my God, this
is going to be way better now. That gap is going to be really
reduced. And it was during COVID.

(04:44):
And so, you know, I had a lot offree time on my hands.
And so I decided, OK, well, let's redo that audit and see,
you know, has the gap changed? And so that's when I started
working with a couple of other researchers at the time like
Kelly McNulty and Alyssa Olnick,and we just recreated the audit.

(05:05):
It was a really simple study. It was a high volume study.
We had million, I think there's over 10 million participants
included in it. But basically the the needle
hadn't shifted at all. There's still only 6% of
research exclusively conducted on females at the time.
And the name came from InvisibleWomen is a book by Caroline

(05:29):
Perez Criado. I hope I don't absolutely
butcher that, but I read her book at the time and I was just
gobsmacked. As you know, she she had this
book talks about how like Army soldier uniforms are just
created for men, not for women. And the effect of that has on,
you know, female soldiers safetyand car crash dummies are men

(05:55):
and higher. That affects the safety of women
driving cars. She had all these examples.
And so that's where the name Invisible Sportswoman comes
from. OK.
And that number, that 6% really,really bothers me as an exercise
physiologist. And we talked a little bit
before we started recording about kind of Sam Moore on my
former students who you worked with when you were in North
Carolina. And Sam was on, I believe it was

(06:18):
episode 144. I had our guest on here.
And, you know, she was led to the field because she didn't see
herself in my exercise Physiology class.
And, and I really took that to heart.
It's like, Oh yeah, we're like basing all these decisions on
how we direct women to exercise and we have no evidence to base

(06:39):
it on. You know, and even when you talk
about menopause and permanent perimenopause and all that,
we're given recommendations off of very limited information.
And so I applaud the work that you and your colleagues are
doing to be able to bring a little bit better light to the
gaps in the exercise science literature and more
specifically, coming up with thebetter guidelines for women and

(07:02):
exercise. Because I don't know if our
listeners realize this, but women and men are not exactly
the same, right? Although there's, you know,
pretty diverse, you know, continuum between, you know,
women that are exercising and various sports capacities and
things like that. And so how did your work in the
US on cardio metabolic health inform your research focus

(07:24):
today? Oh, I mean, honestly, it, it
didn't it like, so I, I did my postdoc at cardio metabolic lab
at UNC Chapel Hill and that was a wonderful experience.
As, you know, growing as a researcher.
I had experience in physical activity and behavior change.

(07:44):
And so this is a whole new worldto me.
And working with Lee Stoner and Eric Hanson, they were really
great mentors in showing me just, you know, I wasn't really
in a lab setting, you know, before.
And so figuring out how to even DEXA was all new to me.
And that's when I met Sam and Abby Smith Ryan.

(08:05):
And, and so I think it was a really formative experience in
terms of developing research skills.
But I cannot say that I would bea confident cardiometabolic
researcher. However, the, they had a huge
study running there that I was, you know, there to, to do my
postdoc on. And they were looking at the

(08:26):
cardiometabolic health of college aged students.
And so we have 500 participants there that had two different
data collection points. And so we're the, the students
there now are just wrapping up that study.
And of course 1, the, you know, the outcomes that they're going
to be looking at it is, are there differences between the,

(08:46):
the men and women students? And I'm really excited about
that. But that that is just wrapping
up at the moment. So hopefully we'll have
something out in the next, you know, year or so.
And you've done quite a few postdocs, haven't you?
I was kind of looking on LinkedIn at your, your
background and it's like, well, she's done more postdocs and I
think most people I know in the field.

(09:07):
How many have you done? So I, I had a very short one in
Ireland after my PhD while we were waiting to get visas and
everything sorted for the US. So that was DCU in Dublin.
So that was interesting. That was around like college
aged students, health literacy. Again, it was, you know, it's a

(09:30):
really interesting topic, but itwas more, I suppose, a stepping
stone until we got over to the States.
And so I had the cardio metabolic lab and then at the
moment I'm at the XI Research Center in Ireland at the
technological University of the Shannon.
And that it's just been such an incredible experience.
Like the the team, they're they're, they're, they're so

(09:55):
innovative and like hungry. And I think Ireland is such a
small island that has so much talent across all the different
universities and within the so the the head of the research
group is Doctor Ethel Lane. And she's been this like just
spearhead to bring all the universities on the island

(10:18):
together to form an all island research consortium for Women's
Health. And I've just never seen
anything like it, you know, people dropping their
competitiveness. And as academics, we all kind
of, we can all talk about interdisciplinary and
multidisciplinary and working, but there is a competitiveness
there. And, but people have been so
open for the better good of improving the health and

(10:41):
well-being. Women and girls across the
island, Northern Ireland and theRepublic of Ireland have come
together. Like it's, it's been really
exciting to be part of us. And we had our first kind of an
all girl event in January and wewere like, maybe if we get like
80 people there. And we were way over capacity.

(11:03):
There was lots of learning. Lots of people couldn't see the
the screens. But that's good.
You know that that obviously there's a desire there for
people to invest into this and, and about 50% were academics,
but about 50% were practitionersand policymakers and people from
grant writing bodies or grant bodies.
So it's exciting. I think it's a really exciting

(11:24):
time for the space and I feel really like proud and lucky to
to be a postdoc at SHE at the moment.
You should be proud of the work you're doing.
I think it's exciting. And what kind of work is being
done at the She Research Center?And how has it come different
from some of the more traditional sports science labs
that I know I would be familiar with and I know you've

(11:45):
experienced in different capacities?
Yeah. I mean, like, I think the actual
like infrastructure or not infrastructure, but I suppose
the structure of the research groups compared to my experience
in the US and Ireland are just very different in this.
I think like we have like I, they just feel like miles apart.

(12:07):
Like I but I don't think it's just research groups.
I think it's just the academic structures are very different.
And I think, you know, even the,the way that your students are
able to have a lot of majors, isthat right?
Majors and minors where we don'treally have that.
It's a very kind of maybe there might be an elective or two in
your final year, but it's quite a set out program from the

(12:31):
offset. Even our PhD structures like we
have no teaching really in our in our PHD's and you know, we
have the defense versus the Viva.
And so, and so I think it's just, yeah, it's very different.
But I think I would like, you know, and I will try to bring in

(12:51):
some of the learnings that I've had from the US back to Ireland.
So for example, you know, we, I had a couple of undergraduate
students work with me on that project.
I mentioned the cardio metabolichealth one where that's from my
experience in Ireland hasn't really been a thing.
And so a lot of undergraduate students wouldn't actually get
that hands on experience of research to actually understand,

(13:14):
you know, how to collect research, like how to collect
data, how, how to deal with participants and gaining
consent. So I think that there's, yeah,
there's really cool things. I think that I had the
experience of learning in the USthat I would like to bring back
into kind of the research groupslike in Ireland.
Yeah. I think we need a good

(13:35):
interchange between the way we do things in both, both areas.
And I didn't know, you know, European studies are much
different than the way we do it academically in the US And I
think we could stand to change alittle bit, maybe we would close
that 6% gap a little bit better if we did have that
understanding. So you're also.
Working with the Horizon projectand I want to make clear to our

(13:57):
listeners and viewers that that is spelled HERIZON.
So could you walk us through theHorizon Project and what made it
unique and what are some of the key outcomes?
Yeah, of course. So, so that project was, I
suppose, what we created or whatI created during my PhD.
And the name came from my very little sister at the time.

(14:22):
She was, I don't know how old she was, but she was little.
And you know, every interventionneeds to have a catchy name,
three-year manuscript. So that's where it came from.
But it was essentially what started as a project that was
going to be very much focused onhis.
It was going to be focused on obese and overweight teenage

(14:43):
girls. That's kind of what I signed up
to. That was a project that was
already created and I applied todo my PhD with this.
And when I got there, you know, I'm thinking, you know, I don't
think we're going to get a teenage girl to even get a blood
sample or get on a weighing scales, let alone take there was
like muscle biopsies. There was all these crazy

(15:06):
outcome measures, but I was like, this is not going to
happen with teenage girls. So anyway, I also think, you
know, teenage girls with obesityor overweight, you know, that's,
I think really we just need to change girls mindsets around
physical activity because in general, we know that girls of
all different shapes and sizes are not meeting the minimum
physical activity guidelines. And we have that huge drop off

(15:31):
that we all know about when theywhen they hit their teenage
years and hit secondary school or high school.
And so that's what the project was about.
And so we really tried to createit with the girls for the girls.
So we had some kind of focus groups and preliminary work to
design the intervention. We had a pilot intervention and

(15:54):
then we had quite a large intervention where, you know, I
took some of the learnings from the pilot.
So for example, I did a lot of our communication through
Facebook and they told me I was a dinosaur, that no one uses
Facebook anymore. Like so then we used Instagram.
And I'm sure if we did it again,they tell me, Emma, you need to
move on to tick tock. You need to so and they sound

(16:18):
like such silly things, but ultimately the girls aren't
going to do it like if we don't really listen to what they need.
And again, it ran over COVID. And so there was a couple of
different components of it. So the girls all had like a
booklet or a physical log book where they could record their
physical activity and it was kind of like a journal.

(16:41):
They were also partnered with a master's student sport and
exercise psychologist. So they had these kind of 1 to
one sessions where, you know, they could reflect on their
physical activity goals. And then they also had the
opera. They didn't have to, but they
were invited to join workout sessions with me on Zoom.

(17:02):
And they saw me like red and sweaty and breathless like
slipping and, and all these things.
And I actually think as embarrassing as, you know, those
times might have been for me, I think it was good for them to
see actually, this is really hard.
And it's not perfectly polished on YouTube with makeup and

(17:24):
perfect lighting. And, you know, they, they talked
about that at the end of the intervention in their like exit
surveys and exit interviews of the importance of having someone
that was relatable. And they also talked about, you
know, when they started the intervention, kind of being
afraid of the pushups and the dumbbell exercises.

(17:45):
And by the end of the three months, they're like, look at my
biceps. Like I am so proud of them.
My brother, like said, my back is getting so big.
And I love that. And they were.
And so I think that was really interesting for me in the sense
that we have this, some of us might have the stereotype that
girls don't want to get big and don't want to get bulky.
But actually, I think once they start exercising and they see

(18:10):
how strong they can guess and how resilient they become and
how determined they become, I just think it's impact.
It's like transformational. And I know that that's across
all age groups, but I think particularly for young girls and
how they can apply those characteristics to all of their
life areas outside of the gym oroutside of their living room,

(18:30):
wherever further exercising is incredible.
So that was Horizon and not so small of a nutshell.
But yeah, it was my most pride project I think I've ever worked
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(18:52):
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And now back to the podcast. That's awesome.
And where do you think some of the hesitation comes from in

(19:14):
young girls of kind of not wanting to lift the weights, not
wanting to to put on muscle? I know I hear so much in and I
know it's changing. I'm getting old.
I'm 62 now. And when I started in my career,
it was much more common that women's, I don't want to lift
weights because I don't want to bulk up.
And now it's like, yeah, I'm lifting more than the guys at
the gym. And they're so proud of that.

(19:36):
So where's that hesitation coming from?
Kind of What did you learn from the Horizon Project about
motivation, self-image and movement, particularly for
adolescent girls? Yeah.
I mean, I think I, I, I think itis changing, but I do still
think it's there. And we've actually just done a
recent project, my colleague KatSchneider at the Centre of

(19:58):
Appearance research, and I have done this kind of two-part study
around women. In the gym and their body image.
So exactly kind of what you're talking about.
And they were women of all ages from 18 onwards.
And I think it's actually been really interesting because we we

(20:18):
didn't specify that they had to be in the strength training area
of the gym or the weights area. We just said women that go to
the gym, but the majority of ourrespondents talked about the
weight being in the weight training area and wanting to be
in the weight training area. Was there was this kind of, I
don't know, I suppose like therethere seems to be a trend now.

(20:41):
You know, when we on social media or like, you know, when we
look at fitness brands, a lot ofthe marketing is now that kind
of toned athletic look in thingslike high rocks and CrossFit and
and all these things. And so I think lifting weights
and being at having an athletic physique is trendy now, which is

(21:03):
wonderful. However, we also found that we,
we did some kind of standardizedscales to kind of assess, you
know, I suppose people's desire to be kind of skinny and thin.
And although that was although that was down.
So I think, I think if we hadn'tdone that maybe in the 90s, you
know, we had that like cocaine chic where everybody wanted to

(21:25):
be rail thin. But now we're kind of swinging
on the other side where people have this desire to still be
quite lean, but also be muscular, but also have a big
bum and also have all these things.
And so I think it's really greatto see more women lifting
weights, but I think that there is like a a balance there to be

(21:48):
had that it's not again, just turning into a new side of
putting so much pressure on yourbody to look a certain way for
whether it's the male gaze or whether it's because it's trendy
or or so on. So it's kind of not really
answering your question. We did have more women in in the
weights area. But yeah, there is still I

(22:08):
suppose something negative goingon there with body image and and
the gym. Yeah, I think we just tend to
see these pendulum shifts of body dysmorphia, you know, where
for women in 90s, you're right, it was, you know, waist thin.
You know, didn't really matter about body fat per SE that there
wasn't that concern. It was he almost had the skinny

(22:28):
fat kind of era in there was just being as thin as possible.
Now it's like, you know, with males, we see the issue.
Teenage males are going to go tothe gym and you're going to
immediately go to the bench press and the arm curls because
they think I guess that's what the image is all about, you
know, having pecs and ABS and biceps and not really thinking
about leg training. And then women are kind of, and

(22:51):
again, this, it always seems somewhat stereotypical to say,
but I think there's the truth toit, that women are going to go
hit the glute machines first. Yeah, the glutes and the hips,
because that's what they perceive has to be, like you
said, bigger bots, but at least they're focusing more on doing
whole body kind of training now,which is a nice shift.

(23:13):
But I think it can get dangerousin that women are starting to be
pushed toward bigger muscles andsmaller waist, you know, 6 pack
abs and all that. And you know, I don't think
people understand that that's not good for female hormones to
be that lean. And so every.
I'm missing anything with their Horizon project that we need to

(23:34):
talk about. I don't.
I mean, I don't so and the girlsdidn't say this, you know,
necessarily like when when we'rein those exit interviews or in
those focus groups. But I do think that, you know,
when we are growing up, I remember, you know, my my
background, my sport is weightlifting.
And, you know, I grew up with mydad saying, Oh, Emma, like,

(23:56):
don't get too big. You know, you're looking a bit
bulky, like, oh, God, thanks, dad.
And And so I'm not surprised that these girls, like, have
that feeling about or that feeling of fear or, yeah, just
needing to look a certain way. And, you know, I think even like

(24:16):
when they're, when they're young, you know, like way before
teenage years, we have boys out jumping in puddles and wrestling
and in the mud. And girls are, you know, in
dresses and playing with dolls. And I'm not saying that that
that's a bad thing, but I'm justsaying, you know, it's, it's not
a surprise that young boys are growing up with better

(24:39):
fundamental movement skills and how that can track into then
being confident and confident indifferent sports.
And I always just my heart just goes out to teenage girls
because we're like, you know, you're lazy or you're dropping
out of sport or, you know, you're not interested.
But it's like, well, they don't feel confident in it because,
you know, you're the curriculum,as I said, is often not set up

(25:02):
for girls who just want to move and be active.
It has to be like a traditional sports.
And in younger years, a lot of girls are not having the same
opportunities to go in that rough and tumble play.
And yeah. And then obviously what we see
on social media, these like perfect, you know, perfect in,
in quotation, you know, quotation marks of what girls

(25:24):
need to aspire to look like. It's a lot of pressure for them.
And I know boys, I know I'm always so biased.
I only talk about the, the hardship of girls.
And I know boys have, you know, tribals too.
Boys. Yeah.
I just, I feel for them. You know, it's a lot of pressure
at this vital life stage of, of puberty and.
Yeah. Now, does the UK have kind of

(25:45):
the equivalent of Title 9 that we have in the United States?
No, no it's not. So it's a little bit different
in there then 'cause I know here, there, there tends to be a
lot more interest now in girls in, in young sports.
And I, I see the significance ofthat for aging well.
And so how, how do you perceive the shifts in women in female

(26:08):
exercise science for the aging of of women that makes sense.
Yeah, I mean, I think following on from from, you know, what I
was just talking about there, like, you know, with the younger
years entering puberty, I know that we do see an increase of
women re engaging with exercise kind of in that college age,

(26:32):
age, fate or life stage. But they're just, it almost
feels like they're like lagging behind, you know, like they,
they've missed out on those crucial years of, you know, peak
bone mass. And, but, and I also think, you
know, like we've just done some focus groups with teenage boys
on their opinions and perspective of girls playing

(26:54):
sport. And it like for the most part,
it was quite negative, you know,not negative in the sense, but
negative in, you know, they, oneof the quotes was, well, they're
kind of just obstacles, you know, like if you're playing
soccer and you go around the girls or the general belief that
girls just are lazy and not a recognition of the fact that

(27:16):
there's not opportunities for the girls to, to partake.
And so we also we, you know, we have a grant in at the moment,
not currently funded, but hopeful.
And it's called grist and it's around kind of gym readiness for
women and the age group is kind of from 18 to pre menopause.

(27:38):
And the aim is helping women to have confidence in the gym.
So you'll, they'll come in for, you know, four weeks of actually
just learning how to turn on thetreadmill, how to adjust a
bench, how, you know, all these really daunting things that, you
know, for all of us who go to the gym, it's not a big deal.

(27:58):
But gyms are so intimidating. The darkness, the loud music,
depending on where you go, you know, it's all these machines.
So people don't know how to work.
So the idea is that they can come in and be shown in a really
comprehensive way that they feelconfident going in.
Then they will have, you know, again, a comprehensive training
program on all your fundamental movement patterns.

(28:22):
And the idea is to really build bone health and to prevent
osteoporosis and osteoarthritis later on.
And because, yeah, I think that there's obviously a huge, you
know, I even think of my mom whowould have been in the
generation of skinnier the better and afraid of weight
training. And I and I see the results that

(28:43):
that's having on her. You know, she has pains in her
hips now and her bones. And so so that's what we're kind
of. That's the next stage,
hopefully, as of my research trajectory, if that was to be
funded, really looking at women's bone health for lifelong
aging well. Yeah, I think that's one of the
most important things for women to recognize is that if you, I

(29:05):
guess that's an overstatement tosay one of the most important
things for women to to recognizeand especially coming from a
male exercise physiologist. So again, I'm very
self-conscious about my presentation of exercise science
for women. But you know, I think it's
important for women to understand that if you, you want
to reduce your risk of osteoporosis, the best time to

(29:26):
do that is going to be in puberty when you have the
opportunity to build up that bone mineral density by doing
weight bearing exercise, weightlifting and doing sport.
And I think, you know, we, we talk a lot in this podcast,
Aging well begins in childhood, begins at birth, probably even
before birth. And you know, it's even more

(29:47):
important probably for women because of what it sets them up
for on the lifespan. And I actually believe that at
least in the United States, because of the trends that we've
seen over the last 30-40 years for really 50 years now,
probably since Title 9, is that women are becoming increasingly
active. They're more involved in sport

(30:08):
and more involved in weight training.
And we're seeing a shift of males away from it all because
we're much more sedentary. They're playing their video
games all the time. And I actually think we're going
to see a little bit more of a shift where women are going to
be less inclined. And then part of it is, you
know, hormonal that increases that risk of osteoporosis, but

(30:28):
with the activity, that's going to offset some of that hormonal
change. But we're going to see males
starting to experience a lot more loss in bone mineral
density because they're sitting on their butts and not lifting
weights and and participating insports quite the way they were,
you know, decades ago. Do you kind of see that in your
experience? Yeah.
I mean, I, I see all the, we, wedon't have, you know, Title 9 in

(30:53):
Ireland, but we do have much more initiatives I suppose like
running to try to get girls who,who aren't the elite athletes,
but they want to be the recreational active girl.
And so I think by, yeah, by seeing.
And I again, like I am aware maybe I'm just blind to anything

(31:13):
for the boys, but there does seem to be more of a drive to
engage more girls in those participation opportunities.
And so, yeah, I wouldn't be surprised, you know, if we do
see a swing. But in saying that, I think that
there is still a such a huge discrepancy in, you know,
baseline physical activity levels at that age group.

(31:34):
But yeah, I do think you're right.
I do think that it begins at birth, even before birth.
I mean, even then opening the kind of worms around, you know,
preconception and pregnancy and postpartum and I suppose the
importance of having active parents, having an active
mother. But then I think throwing into
that the the concern that so many women have now because of

(31:55):
the lack of research on is it safe to exercise?
Is it safe to do high? I know that, you know, that
there's been great work by Margie Davenport around, you
know, low intensity resistance training.
But I think there are there is still such a fear for women
wanting to conceive and those who are pregnant in what is safe

(32:16):
and OK for me to to do so. Yeah.
So I think and and all of that stems really from just that lack
of of research specific for women.
Yeah. And I think one big void is our
understanding of what it it doesduring puberty, you know, women
who are physically active, lifting weights.

(32:38):
From an epigenetic standpoint, what does that mean for
subsequent generations? Because we know that if women
are not adequately nourished during puberty, it's going to
have an impact on the risk of diabetes.
And their granddaughters, well, what about, you know, what if
they're lifting weights? Does that have a negative
effect? Does they have a positive
effect? There's so much that we don't

(32:58):
know. I think probably the implication
would be that the more physically active, the more fit
they are, the better those generations are going to be.
At least we could be hopeful of that.
And if not, then there's future generations just have to work
out a little bit more. Keep up, right, Because I don't
think I would. Yeah.
Even if the research said that, you know, working out is going

(33:19):
to have, you know, an increased risk of obesity in your
granddaughter, which I doubt very much that that's going to
be the case. But we can deal with that
because of the positive impacts that that woman being active in
her teen years and beyond are going to have in her life.
Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah.
And I think, I mean, just just coming back slightly to the, to

(33:41):
the research gap, I think it's questions like that that are
really interesting and impactfuland important for us to invest
in, you know, to carry out those, you know, large scale
expensive studies. And I know, or it seems that
there's kind of a lot of conversations at the moment
within specifically kind of female sports science.

(34:04):
And like, I suppose on one side,the, there's AI have an
understanding of the, and I, I should hold up my hand.
Hopefully it's clear in this conversation that I am clearly
not a, a physiologist, you know,I'm not in the labs collecting
these blood biomarkers, but I have an appreciation of the
expense of that both kind of financially and time.

(34:25):
You know, I had a friend during my PhD who is doing some, his
studies and you know, it was taking triple the amount of time
to do those acute testing sessions with the women, female
participants compared to the men.
And so I, I appreciate it's not as simple as just saying, oh, we
need more research on women. And I think that, you know,
there's another, there's anotherkind of string to that of, well,

(34:50):
maybe we don't need to replicateeverything.
You know it, you know, women aren't small men, but maybe
we're not that different for particular topics.
But I think was and, and it's that 6% number that's quoted all
the time. And hey, I love it brings up the
citations. Love it.
But it's actually for me, it's more about the the studies that

(35:13):
are only including men. And I can't think of any
examples off the top of my head,but there was no reason to
exclude women. You know, they were topics that,
you know, were relevant to both.But the studies that are only
including women are our subjectsand topics like pregnancy or
like menopause. And I think that's, that's

(35:35):
frustrating. It's a missed opportunity.
And even now we're doing a scoping review looking at the
mental health and psychosocial health benefits of resistance
training for women. And it's, it's a lesson that I'm
I'm learning. I only really work with female
participants. So I haven't really had this
dilemma yet or this challenge yet.

(35:57):
But so many of the papers don't disaggregate their data, and so
we really don't know the benefitof resistance training
specifically for women because all the sample is kind of piled
in together. And even if it doesn't make it
into the paper, a supplementary file or something would be so
helpful for us to unpick that a little bit more, especially

(36:21):
given the fact that, you know, like, when we see some kind of
crazy studies getting funded that like, are a bit ridiculous,
but we still have to justify whyit's important to study women.
I think that for me is the frustrating part of this, you
know? I don't disagree there at all.
So tell us a little bit about Midday.
That's an ambitious all island effort.

(36:44):
How did this come together and what makes it so important right
now? Yeah, so, so mida is an Irish
word and it means the centre point.
So the idea is, is that it's multidisciplinary as I ever
mentioned, it's multi institutional.
So we're all meeting together inthe center to work on topics

(37:10):
collectively that will improve women and girls health and
well-being. And so we, so as I said, it
launched in January and we have a couple of projects underway so
far and it's the four I suppose Co leads or Co chairs.
So one is kind of physical activity, 1 is data analysis,

(37:33):
one is sociology and one is Physiology.
And so you can see it's very different and they're we're
trying to do something that's genuinely has.
So if we tackle something like injury that we're attacking,
tackling is from all different angles, not just from the kind
of sports medic. And we have some buy in from

(37:56):
kind of the the national sporting body in Ireland who's
been wonderful and you know, supporting some of the projects
that we're running. One of them is looking at a
gender equity kind of micro course for undergraduate
students, kind of help them be advocates for, you know, both
women and men, but advocates in general for people who are

(38:19):
underrepresented in sports. We have a project running on
identifying kind of what the publics research priorities are
across the island. We have something running on
pregnancy and postpartum. So you can see there's quite a a
broad Remus and that's what makes that I think really
exciting and scary and not, not scary is not the right word, but

(38:42):
it's in, you know, it's a big project and it's new and it's in
that kind of messy infancy stage.
And so it's exciting what's to come from it, but it's also, you
know, not hard work, but just, it's just that messy initial
stage that we're trying to kind of really formulate where we
want to go and have the structures in place to allow us

(39:03):
to go for these larger grant applications and how that works
logistically across institutionson the island.
So it would appear that kind of this interdisciplinary
collaboration is essential for Women's Health research,
exercise science research. Do you think there's potentials

(39:24):
beyond Ireland to take us more internationally?
Can it be something that we could accomplish here in the
United States, as large as we are, in as many institutions as
we have? Oh, wow, I thought you were
going to say that you wanted to join me.
I was like, oh, great, yeah, we'd have some American
collaborators. And I mean, I, I think, I mean,
I know in Australia they seem tobe doing some really cool work

(39:48):
across the country, continent, country.
And you know, they're doing, I only saw something recently.
It's like a machine learning type thing of where they're
trying to basically map all the projects that are going on.
I think this is kind of what they're trying to do across
Australia. And so, you know, if somewhere

(40:08):
as big as that is able to collaborate together, I think,
you know, and I don't know, likein the US you have the Tucker
Institute and you have all thesevarious centers doing really
cool work. But there is something quite
brave about coming together and working together.
And the cross disciplines throwsa whole other thing.

(40:29):
You know, it's different, you know, if you have two
physiologists from different institutions but throw a
sociologist into the mix, those conversations are going to be,
you know, more challenging. But I'm learning so much from
that and seeing other people's perspectives, and I think it is
making the research much more high, like it's a higher
caliber, and I think therefore it will have more impact.

(40:53):
Yeah. You know, you said you thought
they wanted to join me. I'd probably love to.
I'm probably too far along in mycareer to have much impact on
either side. But, you know, I think it would
be phenomenal for this to grow more internationally because I
think we we do need to see it. And we also have to understand
that there are kind of geographical regional

(41:14):
differences in how women are interacting with exercise, even
men interacting with exercise. And I know for years Australia
has done very well in the exercise science areas.
I, I do think in the United States we've been a little bit
behind other areas when it comesto more the sports applications
and, and probably in particular,we've probably driven much more

(41:34):
of that knowledge gap between the men and the women.
But I think there's a great opportunity for much greater
collaboration within the United States, heck even within states.
And I worked in Michigan for about 10 years and they had a
very good kind of inner collaboration among different

(41:56):
institutions, not necessarily doing research, but bringing
undergraduate programs together once a year for kind of a
conference and doing those typesof things that I haven't seen in
other states. And so we have maybe some
opportunities within states, butwe have 50 states that need to
come together and do that. And then we also have to reach
across the the pond a little bitto our, you know, our UK

(42:20):
predecessor predecessors and kind of bring a little bit more
unity into that. But what are some of MIDA and I,
I haven't come in my notes to call it midday.
I must have looked up the wrong Irish pronunciation.
But Midas core values like equity, advocacy impact, how do

(42:41):
those or how are these reflectedin the various projects that are
going on? So we've actually set up kind of
like a governance structure. So we have so, and this is what
I mean we're in the infancy stage, OK.
But but we, we have on our website, I, I think it's up
there that we have kind of this governance structure or

(43:04):
organizational structure, I should call it.
One of those horizontal layers is around governance.
One of them is around kind of scientific excellence, one of
them is around knowledge translation.
And then the projects kind of fit into that vertically.
So each project we have kind of a working group that will ensure
that you know it, whatever the results are, they're not just

(43:29):
being buried in an academic manuscript that we're doing
podcasts. So we're, we're reaching out to
practitioners on how we can actually apply this.
And we, we had a scoping review published.
It was probably actually around the beginning of the year, maybe
January. And so we created more of an
accessible report or policy document on that, which just had

(43:53):
a very clear infographics to make sure that the key
recommendations were highlightedso that people didn't have to
first of all, try to access behind paywalls these these
articles, but also, you know, just guess exactly what they
need as the public. So that's what we try to do.
And then also, you know, we havekind of a Co creation project

(44:14):
running at the moment where we actually have volunteer
participants from the public andadvising on these projects to
make sure that we're not sittingin this ivory tower, assuming
that we know what people want. But actually, you know, we have
this group and we've, we've had,I think we've had two meeting, 2
quite long meetings with them toget their feedback.

(44:38):
And and so we're really trying to make sure that the projects
that we do as a collective in our initial first year is true
to our values and our principles.
And yeah, with the, you know, with the end goal of obviously
having excellent science, but really that it's actually having
impact for the people that we wanted to reach, which is, you

(45:00):
know, women and girls firstly onon the island of Ireland.
So how can clinicians, coaches and other educators begin to
kind of take this information and apply it in a more nuanced
setting with women in sport and come to understanding of woman's
Physiology that makes sense? Yeah.

(45:20):
And I don't think I have a very good answer for that right now.
I think, you know that I mentioned we did that conference
or inaugural event in January and I think we were kind of
surprised to see how many people, non academic people were
interested. I'm sorry, when I say non

(45:41):
academic, I obviously I'm talking about people who are
working as researchers or lecturers in this space.
We were really surprised to see the interest in the event by
them. And so now we're already talking
about, you know, OK, well, the event for 2026, how do we kind
of flip this? So instead of, you know, people
sitting there listening to kind of our academic 10 minute

(46:02):
presentations, actually how do we get clinicians and
practitioners more involved to make sure that we are reducing
that kind of research to practice gap?
Because I know we all know aboutthis, you know, is it 20 years
or something for it to actually,you know, be applied?
And so now we have the opportunity where we know that

(46:24):
people are interested. OK, well, how do we actually
start to change things? And so hopefully through events
like that, and we also have a, it's called Media Connect.
And so basically it's focused onwomen, but it's for women
working in sport and exercise. So it's not just academics.
You might be a coach, you might be in the media, volunteers.

(46:49):
And so they've also been having these really nice events.
I actually missed the last one of the photo.
They're always in amazing locations.
The photos are great. But anyway, the idea is to allow
these women to network together.There are academics in the room.
And so we're reducing those barriers between these different
kind of stakeholders or different groups, so that

(47:11):
actually there's just this network group of women working
in the same area, in the same geographic location and have
various Twitch points in nice hotels across the year.
What a brilliant idea, getting academics outside their ivory
towers and connecting with the people who are most going to use
the information and actually listening to the people who need

(47:32):
the information. So I, I'm in awe of what you
all, what they're doing. So keep it up.
So are there any major myths or misconceptions around women's
fitness that you wish people understood better?
I mean, I think the the one thatI'm struggling with at the
moment is this kind of phase based training.

(47:55):
I know it's really popular on social media at the moment and I
actually think Sam and Abby havedone a paper reasoning, which I
think helps to let me, let me sorry, rewind there.
But what I mean by phase based training is this idea that, you
know, we walk for 1/4 of the month for one week and we do
yoga for one week. And then there's one week that

(48:17):
we're able to lift heavyweights or run and then Oh no, we have
to go back to walking or, you know, it's that kind of idea.
And I see so many social media influencers, he's kind of
pushing this at the moment. And I just think it has the
potential to be so detrimental to women.
It's telling women how they should feel at a certain time of

(48:39):
the month. It takes no regard for the fact
that, you know, I, I usually have very easy periods.
My sister does not. My sister has a sore back.
She is in pain. Why would we both need to adapt
our training in the same way? And I think it just, yeah, it

(49:00):
just puts pressure. It puts more constricting kind
of barriers around how women should behave or exercise.
But yes, I think Abby and Sam did a piece on this recently
where I think they break it downto actually was phase based
training could be as opposed to these kind of things that we see

(49:21):
on social media that are taking a completely out of context.
And so I think things like that is a fear of mine at the moment
because it's just so frustratingto see all the time and we just
don't really have any evidence to actually support us.
Yeah, you bring that up and something that I've noticed in
the exercise Physiology text, and I don't know how many
editions of the current exercisePhysiology text that I use in

(49:42):
class have been out since I first purchased my.
Like, I actually got it free in grad school, going to
conferences, but the number of different editions and they very
rarely identify the principle ofindividuality when they talk
about the principles of adaptation.
And it's like, you know, individuality goes beyond

(50:03):
gender, race, you know, height, weight, those types of things.
There's so much down the hormonal level that we still
don't understand and yet we try and apply everything in this big
brushstrokes of everybody's the same within their categories
kind of thing. And so I appreciate the kind of
breaking that down a little bit more and challenging those

(50:24):
misconceptions back to kind of the research and just kind of
the opportunities and, and getting money and funding and so
on. What are some of the challenges?
I know we've talked about funding a little bit, but
publishing, translating women focused research into policy and
practice, because I think that'sthe main thing that we want to
see happen is we do this research.

(50:46):
It's got to impact us at the community levels if we want
people to get healthy. So what are some of the major
challenges you've experienced? I mean, I, I think actually
slipping it slightly and that I think it's a really good time,
you know, to, to be in this field.
And I think that there's a growing interest and whether

(51:06):
it's, you know, just a marketingploy or what, hey, you know,
I'll take it, even if it's just because we've had this increase,
you know, I know we've had the height width, you know, 5050,
like gender equity or gender equality at the last Olympics.
And and so there is that kind ofmarketing hype, I suppose,
around it. But I think that actually can

(51:26):
help. And for us to ride that wave
while, you know, women's sport is popular and trendy and in the
press. And maybe I'm in an echo
chamber, but it does seem like there is more media coverage.
And I think that helps. You know, I've had far more kind
of journalists and reach out to me recently about, you know,

(51:47):
that first invisible sportswomanpaper because because it because
we have women, more women playing sport at the elite
level. And I'll take that, You know, if
that means that's my little crack of the door being open,
that's fine. That's grace.
And I do think though, like on the policy level, not in terms

(52:07):
of research being conducted on women or with women, but in
terms of women academics, I think that's maybe where some
institutional policies and procedures could be adapted to
better cater for women who are trying to progress their
academic careers. And I'm sure this is a plot, you

(52:30):
know, we're talking about sportsscience, but I would imagine
it's across all disciplines or definitely, you know, man
dominated disciplines. But you know, the reality is,
OK, yeah, we have maybe 5050 at undergraduate level, even
potentially at PhD level, but wehave fewer women at
professorship level. And it's like, where what is

(52:50):
that? What's happening in that leaky
pipeline? You know, why are the women
leave? Is it the conditions, you know,
working with, you know, majorityof men departments is, is they
want to go and maternity leave and therefore their research
trajectory slows down and therefore they can't get like,
you know, it's all these, these things that I think we, I don't

(53:12):
know what the policy and procedure is, but I think
something there probably needs to change because it feels quite
unfair for a lot of women. And although we have charters
coming in, I know here in the UKand Ardent, we have like the
Athena Swan charter. I don't know if that's also in
the US, but trying to make, you know, academic spaces more
gender equitable. But yeah, I, I, I fear this.

(53:37):
We are losing some incredible talent and I, I don't know why
and I don't know how we necessarily fixed us, but I
don't think it's women going on another leadership course.
Yeah, yeah. And I think we've had a little
bit of a set back with that in the United States with some of
the kickback on DEI and everything that's going on here.

(53:59):
I personally have seen a, you know, a lot more growth for and
opportunities for women in exercise science.
Sometimes you almost feel as a male that it's to the detriment
of the male in the field. But, you know, I think there's
that definite need to broaden our scopes, our viewpoints, our

(54:20):
experiences and all of that. And when it comes to developing
kind of diverse faculties acrossdifferent, different
disciplines. And I mentioned before, you
know, we started recording. Corey Metzger, here's our
strength and conditioning coach.Western Oregon, where I teach,
is one of the few, you know, female masters, strength and
conditioning coaches that are inthe field.

(54:40):
And she's brilliant and she is doing a great job at terms of
inspiring our young female athletes to go into strength and
conditioning, which is just one of the steps.
And I think a lot of it is just people like yourself getting out
there in front of the social media and pointing women toward

(55:01):
exercise science and towards theopportunities in the field.
Because it's not going to come from old white guys like myself.
Change the demographics of the field.
It's going to come from the young people like yourself that
are the the examples that are showing that there are
opportunities. You know, people like Sam as
well. And I, I feel somewhat

(55:23):
embarrassed, but also honored bythe fact that I've inspired Sam.
They kind of go into exercise Physiology because she didn't
see herself in my class and you know that that was a wake up
call for myself. And I think it is important that
the more we can get out there and help women understand that

(55:44):
there's a place for them in sport, there's a place for them
in the gym, there's a place for them in just being healthy and,
you know, doing the things that historically men have been doing
and perhaps excluding women fromthat.
There's opportunities are there.And if the opportunities aren't
there, then kick the damn door down, right?
And so I'm excited for the work that you're doing.

(56:07):
And how does this kind of sway into, I know this is the topic
of this podcast is the Aging Well podcast.
And we haven't talked a lot about aging, but I think we have
because this is all very important for the aging of women
that they are involved in these activities.
So what does aging well mean to you personally and

(56:28):
professionally? You.
Know I have an 88 year old granny who still goes to the gym
and she's been a bit wobbly on her feet lately and are, you
know, the local physiotherapist I suppose, came to the house
recently and gave her a walking and she was so offended.

(56:48):
But she she said it's not a walking stick.
It's now her weapon and she and that's, that's what I that's
what I want to be doing when I'mnearly 90.
Like, she talks about the peoplein her gym being Dick Rapid.
He does not identify with that. And I just, yeah, I, I that's

(57:08):
what I want to. I want to be able to carry my
shopping bags. I want to be able to, you know,
get up and down my stairs and play with grandchildren or great
grandchildren. And I also want to be able to be
a professor one day. But I, I really don't want to
have to be up all night breastfeeding a brand new baby

(57:33):
while I'm trying to write grant papers to, to stay in the race.
And, you know, I think yes, we are.
I am definitely seeing more women professors who are doing
incredible things. But I also know some of the, the
struggles that they've had to get there.
And not that men don't have struggles to, to reach
professorship, but not at all. But I just, I suppose I, I would

(57:58):
love for my journey there to be a bit smoother.
And, and yeah, I, I suppose just, yeah, the, the, it always
stays with me. Like for invisible sportswomen
that some of the women talked about how when they had babies
or they had children, that work life balance got better for them
because at 5:00 PM or, you know,they had to clock off because

(58:20):
they had to go and pick up theirchildren.
But there was no recognition of the fact that, you know, coming
home to make dinner and clean the house and wash the children,
put the children to bed. It was just a new form of work,
unpaid work. And I think that is changing.
And we see, you know, I have a wonderful husband.

(58:41):
I can't tell you that he's wonderful doing the laundry and
things like that. But, you know, he's he's pretty
good. I'll keep them.
And yeah, I just, I hope that, you know, aging in my career
that we see some changes to makeit a little bit easier for women
on that road to professorship orwhatever it is at, you know,

(59:01):
their pinnacle of their career might be.
I think we see it in some areas.I know the institution I'm at
has been very good with that. One of my this is, I think if
she's not necessarily one of themost recent recent hires, but
she's fairly recent. I'm suddenly now the senior
faculty member in our division because they're the one older
faculty member. And I think she's actually

(59:21):
younger than me, just retired, but she's been there the
longest. But when we hired Laura, she,
she came in with Ben. She had young children and the
fact that we had kind of a lactation room in our education
building, you know, was a big step for her.
Having it was a big opportunity.And I think a lot of it is just

(59:44):
institutions overall need to be recognizing that there are these
different needs. I think we men need to be
recognizing that we could pick up the slack a little bit more.
When I got married and we had our first kids, my wife was in
an executive position. So compare that to academics.
She was making twice what I was making.

(01:00:05):
It's like I'm the one that's going to have to, you know, pick
up the slack a little bit. So I was the one, you know, took
the, I had the opportunity to pick up the kids.
Well, at the time it was just myson, but pick him up from
daycare, you know, if he was sick, I could take him to class.
And you know, I love telling thestory one my students that when

(01:00:26):
I was teaching anatomy, my son was sick.
And so I had him with me in the classroom.
And it was this big auditorium style classroom and I was on the
kind of the sloping one side standing there holding him
talking. And the topic was the medulla
oblongata. And I'm holding him.
And fortunately turned just as Imentioned that one of the

(01:00:46):
functions of the is it's the vomiting center in the brain.
Because just as I did right on cue, projectile vomit.
And had I not turned, he would have puked all over one of the
girls in the class. And, you know, so we've, we have
those opportunities. I think sometimes we take them
for granted. And we also, you know, males,

(01:01:09):
maybe we had an easier time of taking advantage of those.
And with certain biases, you know, women, it's like they're
kind of put down for being in that position.
But we just didn't need better understanding.
And I think that's part of what,you know, this podcast and Aging
Well is all about is, you know, we talk in terms of our spies,

(01:01:29):
our spiritual, physical, intellectual, emotional and
social well-being is a key component in Aging Well.
And so changing our social understandings of the genders of
people's position in sport or inacademics, whatever it might be,
really comes down to the collaborative efforts that we're
seeing, you know, you and your group doing in Ireland and

(01:01:51):
trying to expand those beyond just our own institutions to, to
become policy, to become, you know, the norm in society that,
you know, we understand that, you know, women are having
babies. They're the ones that are, you
know, having to bear the child for nine months.
And that impacts their work. You know, for me, when my wife

(01:02:12):
was pregnant, it wasn't an issuefor me at work.
You know, I didn't have to deal with standing and lecturing
with, you know, developing baby in front of me.
But, you know, she had kind of some of the same complications.
We were talking last night at dinner when she was pregnant
with my son, she was asked to goto India on a trip and

(01:02:36):
fortunately had enough sense notto go to India.
And she was several months pregnant.
But you know, those are things that we need to understand.
And having these conversations, I think gets it out to the
forefront. And so that's one of the big
reasons why I was excited to getyou on this podcast, to be able
to highlight some of these discrepancies and to be able to

(01:02:58):
voice my guilt in maybe not doing my part to push forward
some of these agendas sooner. But I think it's an important
conversation. And so I'll ask you the question
that we ask of all of our guests.
We're kind of at that point in the conversation.
What are you doing to age well? What am I doing to age well?
I am taking my creatine, I am doing a lot of Olympic

(01:03:22):
weightlifting and I am also slowly trying to enjoy running
to improve my cardiovascular health.
And I mean, apparently it gives you a runner's high mental
health, but I haven't got there yet.
So yeah, I guess that's that's what I'm doing.
So what kind of training or Wellness programs do you think

(01:03:44):
we'll see more of in the future?Is this research that you're
doing matures? I mean, I, I would love to see
more studies on woman's resistance training.
I know that we have some limitedthat there are a few of them,
but honestly, I think doing thisscoping review that I mentioned,
I didn't realize that there was so few.

(01:04:07):
And the majority of them are focused on older women or women
with health conditions like breast cancer like, but there's
there's like hardly any I've found so far.
If there's anyone listening to this who is running such an
intervention, please let me know.
But looking at whether it's in the childhood, youth years or

(01:04:31):
free menopause. So yeah, I would like to see
more resistance training programs for women at that, at
those life stages. And the resistance training
you're talking about is not the little pink 5 LB dumbbells, just
doing high, high volume repetitions of that.
You're talking maybe getting women into some Olympic lifting,
powerlifting, doing real strength bears exercise.

(01:04:55):
Yeah. And I think there's a huge
opportunity in those areas. We had last year I had on a
woman, Jim Rahir, who is a German.
She had Ms. and came from Ms. tobeing a kind of Olympic style
weightlifter in her own age bracket.
And, you know, it's just really cool, you know, overcoming

(01:05:17):
there. And then I have another, this is
a colleague of mine on campus. She decided, I guess a couple
years ago now that she had long wanted to donate an organ or
kidney to somebody. And so she decided better now
than never. And so she decided to just
donate a kidney, not to a familymember or any of that, just, you

(01:05:39):
know, as a social obligation. She had two healthy kidneys.
She could give one up. And she wanted to make sure she
was in good shape prior to doingthat.
And so she contracted with one of my former students who was
doing personal training and start lifting with her, got in
pretty good shape prior to the surgery, had, you know,
everything went well with the the kidney transplant.

(01:06:01):
She recovered fine. And she didn't stop there.
She's continuing. She's now wanting to compete in
powerlifting. And she's my age, so she's like
early 60s. Yeah.
There's great stuff happening and there's great opportunities
for women. And I think people like yourself
and Sam and others are helping those doors to open up and for

(01:06:22):
people to be aware of what they can do.
So I have great hope for what kinds of programs, whether it's
training or Wellness programs, we might see particularly for
women as this research matures. So is there anything we miss
talking about today? I feel like we could probably go
on and on and on, but. No, no, I don't, I think so.
I, you know, I, I, I love working with, with Sam and with

(01:06:46):
like other colleagues that are, you know, at postdoc or early in
their research careers. And now, you know, I'm able to
bring in some PhD students. And yeah, I'm really excited too
about, you know, the way that things seem to be moving.
I'm, I am, I am very conscious that maybe I am in an echo
chamber, but you know, people are doing really cool stuff and

(01:07:08):
I think are more aware of the importance of knowledge
translation. And so there I think it can have
more impact. And so yeah, I'm excited too to
see where, you know, things go. Maybe we'll do another audit in
10 years time and maybe that 6% will have improved.
We'll see. Well, let's not wait 10 years to
have you back on the podcast. We'll have to maybe have you,

(01:07:30):
both you and Sam, on in like another six months or so, maybe
for next season to just kind of talk about the state of women's
exercise and where we've been, where we're going, how much more
distance we have to cover and just kind of keep this at the
forefront. I'd love this.
I would love this. All right.
So we will plan on that and I'lllet Sam know as well or you can

(01:07:52):
we put her on the hook. Yeah, yeah.
Anytime I can pin Sam down somewhere to to have a chat I
will be there yes and look forward.
To it. Well, I just appreciate your
time today. I know you're it's probably late
in your day being you're what, 8hours behind or ahead of me?
It's just after six. Yeah, you think?

(01:08:13):
Yeah, so it's 10:00 here. You probably want to maybe get
to lifting or go home and do thelaundry since your husband's not
doing it. I really appreciate your time.
Just keep doing what you're doing, keep progressing exercise
science and the way that you are, and just keep aging well.
Thank you so much. Thanks so much for having me.

(01:08:35):
Thank you for listening. Hope you benefited from today's
podcast and until next time, keep aging well.

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The Invisible Sportswoman: Rethinking Exercise Science for Women and Girls at Every Age | Ep. 288

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}The Invisible Sportswoman: Rethinking Exercise Science for Women and Girls at Every Age | Ep. 288