Up to Speed
The Groundbreaking Science of Women Athletes
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3.3 • 3 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
“Up to Speed is a roadmap and toolbox for athletes of all ages. Every coach should read it and discuss it with their athletes. I wish I had been able to read this book while I was competing.” —Kara Goucher, Olympic long-distance runner and author of The Longest Race
How the latest science can help women achieve their athletic potential
Over the last fifty years, women have made extraordinary advances in athletics. More women than ever are playing sports and staying active longer. Whether they’re elite athletes looking for an edge or enthusiastic amateurs, women deserve a culture of sports that helps them thrive: training programs and equipment designed to work with their bodies, as well as guidelines for nutrition and injury prevention that are based in science and tailored to their lived experience.
Yet too often the guidance women receive is based on research that fails to consider their experiences or their bodies. So much of what we take as gospel about exercise and sports science is based solely on studies of men.
The good news is, this is finally changing. Researchers are creating more inclusive studies to close the gender data gap. They’re examining the ways women can boost athletic performance, reduce injury, and stay healthy.
Sports and health journalist Christine Yu disentangles myth and gender bias from real science, making the case for new approaches that can help women athletes excel at every stage of life, from adolescence to adulthood, through pregnancy, menopause, and beyond. She explains the latest research and celebrates the researchers, athletes, and advocates pushing back against the status quo and proposing better solutions to improve the active and athletic lives of women and girls.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Yu debuts with an illuminating survey of how researchers have overlooked women athletes and what science says about what they need to achieve. She covers the challenges women athletes face, including a paucity of research, assumptions that women's bodies function identically to men's, and ill-fitting gear originally designed for men and shrunk down. Highlighting the institutional lack of support for women athletics, Yu notes that a review of academic studies on athletic performance found only 34% of subjects were women and that another analysis found Division I schools spend 71¢ on women's teams for every dollar they spend on men's. She tells stories about the creative solutions women have devised to navigate the male-dominated sports world and recounts how amateur runner Lisa Lindahl started the first sports bra company in 1977 with a design based around two jockstraps. Yu also provides guidance on how women can enhance their performance, recommending they prioritize calorie intake to keep up energy levels and tailor their workout routine to their menstrual cycle (though she doesn't get into specifics, writing that what works for one woman won't necessarily work for someone else). Yu's overview of the many ways women athletes are underserved enrages, and her mastery of the scientific literature impresses. This is a valuable contribution to the growing science on women in sports.
