Not Just a Man's World

An interesting blog post landed in my RSS feeder this week.  It covers the female athlete triad – three conditions that can occur when a woman tries to take her fitness to the next level.  The post also provides some (limited) guidance on how to deal with the problems.

What factors make up the female athlete triad?

1. Amenorrhea (no menstrual bleed)
2. Eating disorders
3. Osteoporosis

1.  Amenorrhea

I had already come across the potential issue of amenorrhea.  It is well documented that athletes who get below a certain body fat percentage will cease to have any menstrual flow.

A study carried out some time ago specifically calculated that the level of adipose tissue needed to constitute less than 17% of a woman’s bodyweight for the condition to occur (Frisch, Rose E. [1984]. Body fat, puberty and fertility, Biol Rev 59).  So the key here is determining your body fat percentage.

2.  Eating disorders

I found the definition of an eating disorder in this blog post a little controversial.  Most of us who have followed a strict cutting diet could be considered by others to have a potentially unhealthy relationship with food when we have a bad day, stray from the diet and suffer the subsequent guilt pangs.  I’ve done so myself since I started writing this blog. 

If I feel guilt it’s probably because I feel that I’ve let myself down during the short period when I’m following such a strict diet.  Also I am usually cross with myself because when you are on a limited period strict diet every day counts.  But you can probably tell from the paleo kitchen posts that I don’t have an unhealthy relationship with food.

Any woman who has taken a cutting diet seriously or who has prepared for a contest of some sort could fall into the very wide definition an eating disorder that is provided in the post.  I would therefore propose that this definition is moderated to refer specifically to people who suffer from this problem persistently over several months.  Not to those who are going through a short but brutally strict phase of their diet. 

If you are worried about this, take a moment to consider your general approach to food on this wider scale of several months, especially if you are in a stricter phase of your diet at the moment when you become concerned.

3.  Osteoporosis

While I am happy to be swayed by the idea that osteoporosis is, in itself, a risk factor of the female athlete triad, I think there is a lot more to the osteoporosis debate than just the removal of dairy.  Especially when you consider that so many vegetables contain more than sufficient calcium.

If you start to see symptoms of osteoporosis and you are lifting heavy weights then something is going seriously wrong, since lifting weights has been proven to build bone density.  Therefore this element of the female athlete triad probably doesn’t really apply to you if your sport involves heavy lifting, and most athletes do some form of resistance training so I found it interesting that it featured on the list at all.

The causes and recommendations

I struggle with the recommendations as they seem to revolve around eliminating the causes.  The causes are thought to be:

1. not consuming enough total daily calories;
2. overall body composition – body fat percentage too low; and
3. over-exercising.

This bothers me.  If you are a figure athlete you are likely to be hitting points one and two.  Point three could happen at any time (the less you eat, the more stress the exercise you do will put on your body).  But if you eat more and exercise less then you aren’t going to achieve your goals.  So I think that again the key here is moderation. 

We should be aware that the factors of the female athlete triad will start to occur when we get to the extremes of our performance and we should make sure we give our bodies the care and attention they deserve. 

Here are a few guidelines I would suggest instead.

• Limit your most severe cutting phases or dietary extremes to 6-8 weeks maximum.
• Make sure you take regular “active rest” weeks from your training to prevent your body becoming too overstressed.
• Be aware of what your body is doing.  If amenorrhea occurs then consider whether you have achieved your latest goals (has your figure competition now happened?).  If so, can you now give your body a rest by allowing your body fat percentage to drift up by a couple of percentage points for a few months?  If you are going to do this then use a controlled program of calorie reintroduction and exercise so that you don’t bloat up suddenly and gain a lot of unwanted fat in the process.  You just need a little bit.

To read more detail about the female athlete triad, check out the blog post written by Vince DelMonte.

Related posts:

1. Blog-watch: optimal female training
2. Blog-watch: Bret’s female strength levels
3. Blog-watch: female strength and conditioning blogs
4. Blog-watch: strength and conditioning blogs (non-female specific)