Women have often been overlooked when it comes to sport and recreation, but you can feel the tides are turning.
There is more money and resources put in — about time,while still acknowledging there is a long way to go — and there appears to be a deeper effort to help understand the nuances of a woman’s body when it comes to the impact of menstrual cycles, pregnancy and sex hormones.
Matatū are playing their role this season, as part of a collaborative study between the University of Canterbury, High Performance Sport New Zealand and the Super Rugby Aupiki team, aiming to shed light on the impact of female sex hormones in athlete recovery and performance.
Matatū players, who are gearing up for the Aupiki final this weekend, have been wearing Whoop bands, which track physiological metrics including daily skin temperature readings, and have provided daily saliva samples to measure hormonal fluctuations.
The results will hopefully make inroads into how menstrual cycles and hormonal contraceptives affect Matatū players’ training, recovery and wellbeing.
UC doctoral student Rebecca Attwell is leading the study, and PhD student Violet Owans is leading the analysis of player samples for her research, under the watchful eye of principal research specialist Marie Squire, senior lecturer above the bar Jackie Cowan, Dr Hannah Wyatt and Prof Nick Draper.
Attwell hopes the research could open doors for a better understanding of the female body.
"While current training methods do work for women in sport, there is a massive gap in how we can best support women's health and optimise performance through a female-centred approach," Attwell said.
“This research is not just about high-performance athletes — it has the potential to positively influence the next generation of female athletes."
Matatū general manager Sarah Munro acknowledged they had a responsibility to contribute to a better future for not only their high performance players, but the next generation of the team’s players.
More programmes and research like this are popping up across the country, and HPSNZ set up a healthy women in performance sport programme in 2022.
Let us hope there is more where that came from.
On a side note, great to see the Highlanders region leading the way with five women included in the New Zealand rugby regional referee squad programme announced this week.
Otago referees Erin Doherty, Elisabeth Hutton-Neill and Amy Eason and Southland referees Cassie Watt and Georgia Mason were named, the highest number of female officials across all five regions.
