Emma Ross: Talking more openly about women’s bodies in sport

Today’s guest is transforming the way women talk about their bodies.   Dr Emma Ross is 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. 

 Since then, 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. 

We 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. 

 It’s such a powerful conversation and Emma’s passion to ensure sport is something that all women can enjoy throughout life is infectious. 

Find out more about Emma and her work at https://www.thewell-hq.com/

A big thank you to our partners, Sport England who support The Game Changers podcast through the National Lottery.

Thank you to Sport England who support The Game Changers Podcast with a National Lottery award.

Find out more about The Game Changers podcast here: https://www.fearlesswomen.co.uk/thegamechangers

Hosted by Sue Anstiss
Produced by Sam Walker, What Goes On Media

A Fearless Women production

Transcript

Emma Ross: Talking more openly about women’s bodies in sport

Sue Anstiss:

Hello, and welcome to The Game Changers. I'm Sue Anstiss and this is the podcast where you'll hear from trailblazing women in sport. What can we learn from their journeys as we explore some of the key issues around equality in sport and beyond.  Firstly, I'd like to say a really big thank you to our partners, Sport, England who support the Game Changers through the National Lottery. My guest today is transforming the way women talk about their bodies. Dr. Emma Ross is the former head of physiology at the English Institute of sport, where she led the Smart Her program, educating coaches and athletes about the female body in high performance sport. Since then, Emma's worked with everyone from many athletes and top coaches due to head to teachers and school girls,  passionate about making sport, a better environment for all women.  In 2020 Emma. Co-founded the Well HQ, an organization that educates and empowers women to understand their bodies and use that knowledge to thrive in sport health, and life. And in recognition of all she's doing for the wellbeing of women and girls in 2021,  Emma received the Sunday Times Sportswomen of the Year Changemaker Award. 

Emma, e haven't spoken to many sports scientists on the Game Changers podcast. I'm really interested to understand more about your career pathway, et cetera, but firstly, to set the scene a little bit, were you sporty as a girl growing up?

Emma Ross:

Firstly, Hi Sue. And thank you so much for having me and I do feel very honored to be here as a, as a sort of sport scientist. Was I very sporty growing up? I was actually, and I was one of those people who loved sport and, didn't necessarily excel to the highest level in anything, but just adored doing it and, trying  nd being there. I was really lucky that I was, I had a pony and a horse when I grew up. So I was into riding and equestrian and that's probably the sport I competed at to the highest level, but I did all of the school sports as well. And when I went to university, I, started playing rugby and I was listening to your conversation with Sue Day on, on a previous podcast. Um, and she mentioned that she felt so honored and was remembering the first time that the women ran out  at Twickenham, and actually one of the highlights of my, you know, average sporting career is that when I was at university we won the university's cup and we were allowed to play at Twickenham to play that final against Loughborough. So that's, that's the highlight of my career running out. And actually, you know, I feel very excited that not many people can say that

Sue Anstiss:

I love that! I've already learned so much about you in the first sentence thought I knew you well, and I've already learned lows. I didn't know. It's fantastic. And I, I know you're also a keen runner now, so you've done some marathons and ultras. So what is it that you loved about running and how did you find that?

Emma Ross:

So I think what I've finished my master when, in fact, when I took my boots off after TWI, I think that was probably one of the last times I played rugby because I knew that if I was gonna pursue that as a, and definitely not a career, but as a, as a hobby that really sort of fulfilled my sporting needs, uh, it was gonna hurt. And I, I just did, I, I wasn't physical enough. I wasn't powerful off to,  sort of move up a level I just needed something to do that,  was flexible and I just started running and someone said, do you want to, um, run the London marathon in, in aid of a charity?

And, sadly a couple of years before that my sister had passed away from a rare neurodegenerative condition and it was her charity that asked me. So of course I was like, yes, that'd be amazing. And that's when I caught the running bug actually. And, and I'd never really been a runner apart from, to do this sports that I had enjoyed. But yeah, doing the London marathon the, for the first time was life changing, just plod- , you know, again, I wasn't, I was very average, but I was plodding along the streets of London, just, you know, with the crowds and the atmosphere and, oh, it was amazing. So that was the bug, uh, bitten. And, um, I went on to do some more marathons, but I kind of also then set my sight on things like Ironman triathlons. And so I did the Ironman triathlon in New Zealand, which was again amazing, but gosh, that takes a lot of time to train for, so that won't happen again. And then off the back of that, I did some ultra endurance running, which I loved. I think if you were to define my running it's that I don't mind how long I run for, but don't ask me to run fast. So that's kind of my mindset. And, and I have to say that when I had children and I didn't have the time or probably the body to, to those sorts of things and accomplishments, I really struggled with my relationship with running because I'd always been pursuing these longer and longer and longer and bigger goals and they had kind of, sort of really fulfilled me and, and kept me running and then suddenly to ha have to run for enjoyment was quite weird. But now I can safely say that it is my it's my head space. It's my mental health, uh, salvation, um, to go out for a lovely run in the spring sunshine. So, um, that's yeah, that's my relationship with running now.

Sue Anstiss:

And did you always have a passion to work in sports science? Where did that, that love come from?

Emma Ross:

Do you know what I was thinking about this the other day? Cause I often have to go back and do sort of careers talks for students and, and I was like, why, why did I end up where I ended up? And I think I, I actually had an ambition to be a PE teacher, um, when I was going into university, but then the sort of science, uh, just grabbed me and I was like, wow, this is fascinating. And you know, I just kept wanting to study it,  and stated in my PhD. And then I sort of fulfilled that teaching ambition by becoming a lecturer.  So it was really a love of sport that got me to study sport science, but then this just curiosity and this whole new world of science and physiology and psychology that I just thought was fascinating. and yeah, haven't, I haven't left.

Sue Anstiss:

And then that transition, you said you were lecturing at Brunelle and then at Brighton. So how did you then end up at, at the English and student sport?

Emma Ross:

Yeah, so I spent probably nearly a decade working in universities, which as I say, I really, really enjoyed. I love teaching. I love communicating and I love when you get students who are really enthusiastic, you know, they, they, you know, this, this is their life's path, you're helping shape. So it was really brilliant. and as a lecturer, I was also a real researcher. So I got to do really amazing research projects.  Actually we just mentioned the Ironman that I did after that I was working in New Zealand with a, another group of sports scientists and we were preparing and then went on a trip to Everest and we were researching the effect of low oxygen in the body because that's what happens when you go to altitude, but it also has implications for how you might treat patients in critical care who have, uh, low oxygen saturation. And it was amazing. And, um, I guess one of the things that defined my research was that I was taking research, which had traditionally been done in a laboratory with sort of quite fragile equipment. And I was like, why don't we take it up a mountain? And I'm like, I would strap this, you know, suitcases of these hundreds of thousands of pounds worth  of equipment onto the side of a yak. And there we were treking at the side of a mountain and, um, didn't really think anything of it. Cause I thought, well, this is real life. This is really investigating real life. And I think that was my journey over to the applied world because I had this real desire to bring fairly traditional and, um, lab-based studies, which are very important by the way, cause they're very well controlled and very precise, but I wanted to bring them into the real world and okay, so we know what happens when you sit in the laboratory, twid dling your thumbs, but what happens when you walk up a mountain so I was really into applying research as much as I could, even when it hadn't been done before so the transition over to applied science was actually quite a natural one, but I hadn't really thought of it until I had a conversation with someone at the English Institute of Sport who was just leaving his role and, and had vacated the head of physiology. And he said, you know, we need to fill this position. And I think you'd be really good. And I was like, wow, I'd never, I'd never really considered it.  Here I was in academia, just kind of, uh, enjoying, enjoying life. Um, but you know, when someone sets to me a challenge, I tend to tend to say, oh, that sounds hard. I'd I'd like to give it a try. And he actually said, oh, well you, no, one's really come, come into the EIS at this level, without having worked as a practitioner in sports science, he said, no, one's done that. And I said, oh, if no, one's done it, then you can bet your bottom dollar  I'm gonna come and give it a go. So, uh, yeah, so I, so I moved across,  and it was a whole other world because I then obviously had to navigate the, the world of sport and the politics and the infrastructure of high performance sport, um, which was amazing and, and brilliant and scary and, uh, difficult. But what I did was bring this sort of love of translating science into that space, which is what sport science in the UK high performance system does.

Sue Anstiss:

And, and for those that might not know, can you just outline how the EIS works and how it serves elite sport in the UK?

Emma Ross:

Yeah. So the English Institute of port is the science and medicine arm of the UK high performance system. So you can imagine you have Olympic and Paralympic sports and all the athletes and the coaches that, that work, you know, work within that system to try and get gold medals and then the EIS supply, I guess, all of the physiotherapists doctors, nutritionist, psychologists, biomechanist, physiologists, performance, life style advisors,, all of those people to help support the coach and the athlete be the best that they can be  and depending on the amount of funding a sport gets, and obviously our bigger sports like cycling and boxing can access lots and lots of support and then smaller sports,  not so much. but yeah, so they provide science and medicine support to, to, and that, and that really has what is, what has moved our UK high performance system forward over the last, you know, 20 years. It's, it's really helped us stay, cutting edge, you know, pioneering and hopefully ahead of the rest of the world.

Sue Anstiss:

And can you remind us where a British sport was when you arrived at the EIS in 2013? So obviously we just had the Olympics and Paralympics, London 2012.

Emma Ross:

Yeah. So I always felt really lucky to arrive in 2013 because I was sort of riding a, a bit of a crest of a wave because we'd just come out of London. And first of all, everyone was still talking about it sort of six months later when I arrived,  as just the most memorable and brilliant games. Because if you can imagine, when you go to somewhere like Tokyo or Rio, as a, as a support staff and a support team, it's really limited how many of you can go. There's not that many accreditations to allow you into the Olympic park. You, you know, the cost of flying everyone, but with London, even you couldn't actually be in the Olympic village itself as a support staff of all of these athletes, you were able to be really close to them and, and help them, which is actually, you know, what you, you really want to be doing.

So everyone was talking about London and it was a very vibrant time for, for the UK high performance system  and I came into sort of the targets that had set for Rio, which were,  we're gonna do better. So again, it was a very challenging time cause you think, oh gosh, like no one's ever done that before. No one's ever won more medals at the games after their home games. How are we gonna do that? Because it's our responsibility as people who are supporting these athletes and coaches to say, you know, shall we try this? Shall we do this? Shall we approach it like this? So we were really integral in trying to help achieve that, that new kind of challenge and goal, but it really was a brilliant time to be in, to be in sport.

Sue Anstiss:

I'd never thought that before about the, um, home advantage of having all your support staff in the place that you are, it's quite interesting. I don’t know why…. they kind of talk about home advantage, but I never thought of, of course they're all there, right there. Aren't they? Um, and what was the gender balance like across the EIS in terms of those working in sports science when you arrived?

Emma Ross:

So the EIS was always fairly balanced in terms of overall, there were fairly equal amounts of, of men and women working in that space. When I walked into the head of service team. So the head basically, u each discipline, nutrition, psychology, biomechanics physiology has a, a head of, of that department. And when I walked into that team, I was the only woman there for a, for a little while. And then, shortly after another head of service was, uh, role was taken by women, but we were very much in the minority. And so I was walking into essentially a male, a very male space at all, brilliant, brilliant people. 

I suddenly was like, oh, that feels, that feels different. And it, it did feel really different. And then from almost from that moment on, I was really interested in women in sport, you know, like how it feels to be a woman, how it feels for the athletes, how it feels for the people working around. I obviously looked around and went, actually, you know what, not only is this sports science space filled with quite a lot of males, the coaching space that is, is almost entirely males. And everyone I was working with from performance directors through to heads of performance science, they were all men. And so it was a, it was the first time that I'd really sensed that. And, and I became really interested in, in why that was and, and how we could change it.

Sue Anstiss:

And so moving on then to the Smart Her program, is it how I say it smart her program? Yeah. Smarter,

Emma Ross:

Smart, smart. Her, yeah. Smart. Her it's sort of a play on words, but it's really annoying. Have to say smart her. Yeah. Smarter,

Sue Anstiss:

But how did that start? And, and I, I guess you've almost set the seed in terms of your mind as how it started, but can you just talk us through, uh, how it began and why?

Emma Ross:

So it really began,, by the senior leadership team of the EIS. So after Rio, after any Olympics, we do a big review of all of the, you know, stats and data and say, what went well, what didn't go well, oh, that happened. Why did that happen? And through that data trawl, the senior leadership team had become aware of this one particular stat that they wanted to explore further. 

And the data was that as we looked at our medal tally, our female athletes bought home about 35% of our metals. And in other countries who are very successful at sport and occupy the top half of the metal table, their female athletes usually bought home around half of their medals sometimes even slightly more. And so the question was, why are our female athletes not bringing home as many medals as in the other countries, full stop question mark, go off and find the answer. And I don't believe that that question was put to me, no, you know, thinking there would be a simple answer, but as you can imagine, I had an absolute field day because it's just such a, it's, it's a rubbish question in the fact that it has no answer. And, and how could you ever answer it and how would you ever know what the answer was? But equally it was brilliant question because allowed me to explore the landscape of sport, right from participation and understanding, you know, that girls were dropping out at twice, the rate of boys and we weren't engaging and retaining girls in sport very well at all. So the base of the pyramid was smaller through understanding all of the girls pathway from participation to podium and, and where the barriers were for her in that. Understanding that girls who, um, are on that pathway are reluctant to train full-time because they see no female role models in sport. There's no female PDs about 10% of the head coaches were female. So, you know, they look and, and someone says to them, do you want to come full-time onto a training program cause I think you could get to the Olympics and they, well, what happens after I finish sport? Like I don't see any women in this, in this system, I'm gonna have to study at university to, to have a, like a dual career path and obviously training and studying is I sort of, doesn't accelerate you as much as training full time. So there was all these really interesting aspects, of, of why we might not be creating a system where our females could win as and access as many medals as, as in other countries. But obviously my remit at the EIS was to the Olympic and Paralympic funded programs. And so whilst I, I really had to understand the landscape to, to be able to inform my own thinking. I was gonna have to work where I worked, you know, I was gonna have to make the change where I worked, which was in sports science support of those athletes. But it was brilliant because I said, okay, well, let's have a look. Um, do we think we support our athletes as well as we can? And obviously the answer that comes back first is, well, of course, Emma, look at these amazing amazingly successful female athletes that we have. You know, we were just off the back of the Jess Ennis era. And so I said, okay, well, let's, let's think about how we can ask the, this a different way. Um, what do you do differently with female athletes? And people are like, well, okay, Emma female athletes have spent a long time trying to get the same as men, you know, the same pay, the same media coverage, the same facilities, the same access to good coaches, the same, you know, like the same quality of kit, all of that, which is still a journey, by the way, we are not there. So you can't come in here and say, we need to do something differently for these girls because that's exactly what they've been sort of rally against. So I was like, okay, um, this is gonna, you know, I'm gonna have to dismantle this a bit. So I, I kind of just went back to my roots as a physiologist and said, okay, the physiology of a female body is different from that of a male body. You know, we have a menstrual cycle, for example, those hormones change our physiology massively. We have periods that we need to manage. We have breast tissue that we need to support in some way. We, and, and I started to sort of gather this list of things that either happens exclusively in a female body, or that happens differently in a female body who’s being trained and prepared for high performance. And that was my sort of compelling case to say, if you can tell me, we are considering all of these things, and we've got a, we've created an environment where women can show up and talk about all of these things. Then I will leave you be and say, it's not our problem. It's somewhere down the pathway, but actually no one, no one was doing, you know, a fraction of the things on that list. No one was even acknowledging that they existed. And actually we'd done a pretty good job of pretending that girls don't have periods. We don't talk about their breasts and their pelvic floors. We just kind of silence or ignore that so that we can concentrate on these women being powerful and strong and sporty, which we need to, but how much opportunity were we missing by ignoring the bits of our female body that we weren't talking about?

Sue Anstiss:

And can you talk to me a little bit about the science and what science existed and the science around female athletes historically?

Emma Ross:

So one of the first things that I thought I would do once I'd established that coaches and the sports science practitioners, perhaps didn't do enough in terms of acknowledging that there were these female bits of the body and what do we do with them differently to, to train athletes in the best way that we can. Once I kind of knew that that was happening, I thought, well, you know what? I will go back to all of the science and the research and the papers, and I will create some best practice and I'll bring it back and then we can all just follow those kind of guidelines and rules. And I went back and I found very, very little information in the, the science and the research to help us support women better and one of the things I came across at the time, which probably stopped me from doing a lot of useless work was a paper that had looked at female representation in sport and exercise science research. This paper said, um, 4% of sport and exercise science and medicine research is done exclusively on women. So we don't have a lot of evidence upon which to base lots of the things that we want with, with athletes.

Emma Ross:

And I think that could feel like a huge barrier and, and a reason to go, well, why would we do anything different until we know how? But I think what we do have, is lots of, lots of understanding about female body. We don't need to know, you know, the minutia of how to get, you know, extra milliseconds of performance out of women before we actually just treat women's bodies as women's bodies and understand they've got menstrual cycles and that their symptoms might be holding them back, or they've got pelvic floor issues that could be, you know, increasing their injury risk or until we get the basics, right. It's almost useless having advanced research into, into how to prepare women for peak performance, because we are not, we're not even doing the basics right. So, yeah, so there is a lack of science and evidence around the women's body, but we know enough to really get going.

Sue Anstiss:

When you to talk to those primarily male performance directors, coaches, and so on, what was their reaction and what did you…well, were you surprised by their reaction?

Emma Ross:

Um, so, uh, it, it was often quite an intimidating space to walk into. So be invited into a, to do a presentation to a group of people and walk in and realise that, yes, they were all, you know, 40 and 50 year old men.  And I was dancing in there talking about periods and pelvic floors and bras and breasts. but actually overall, they were super engaged because I mean, women don't know enough about our bodies. So in 2019, there was a report by the Royal college of Obstetricians and Gynecologists about women's health in general, not necessarily related to sport and its concluding remark was that at every life stage, women are woefully uneducated about their bodies. So we don't know enough. And the rise of chatter around the menopause and demands for better menopause treatment are because women are suddenly realised we haven't understood our bodies. We've been in the dark,  nd now you you're telling me all this stuff. So we don't know enough about our bodies. So you can bet your bottom dollar that there's these, you know, swathes of men who would love to, but have never been educated remotely about the parts of the women's bodies that we were talking about. So lots of these groups of men were, are fascinated and curious and then like, right, well, you, you know we can't be trying to make rounder wheels, you know, in cycling and ignore the fact that we haven't made a saddle that fits the female body so they got it. They absolutely got the opportunity. We had some pushback most of the pushback from the females were from people who had been in that system so long and had suffered so long. There's this sort of hangover of, well, I got through, I had period pains and I just got on with it. we need to get out of that habit because actually now we know better, we can do better. 

Sue Anstiss:

And we talked, we've touched on, I guess, that prevalence of men as performance directors and coaches But how do we then go forward to enable those men to feel comfortable talking to women and girls about periods and breast health and, stress incontinence and so on when many women don't even talk about those things themselves or with their families ?

Emma Ross:

Yeah. And I think one of the things that I've realized the longer I've done this is that we can't just say, we need to talk more about it or come on, everyone, get comfortable talking about it. That's just the most ridiculous thing. You know, you can say those words out loud, but everyone's about, okay, sure. It's still mortifying because historically in, as a society, we have, we have silenced these things periods probably have had a lot more conversation around them, around period poverty and around, you know, girls missing school due to periods, over the last couple of years. And that's, that's brought that conversation up a little bit, but we have, have to remember that, like you say, most people are not willing to talk about this. I was working at a school last week and one of the little questions and we get them to put questions on a slip, was how do I talk to my mom about starting my periods? So we've got girls who don't want to talk to their moms. How do we say to a 17 year old female athlete to go and talk to your 60 year old coach who’s not even related to you. And it's quite scary, you know? So, um, that's the biggest shift I think that needs to happen. And I think it's a big shift because ultimately what we're asking sport to be is a space where people feel safe and comfortable to talk about tricky topics. And whenever I mention creating comfort, say spaces in sport, people get a bit nervous because sport isn't meant to be comfortable. It's not meant to be, um, feel safe and warm and nurturing. It's meant to be hard and high pressure. And like, you're always worried that you're gonna get chucked off the team. So you do whatever it takes and it's no compromise. And I think we need to move away from that. And we need to believe that we can create spaces, and we can have conversations that are vulnerable and nurturing and compassionate and still win medals. Like I fully believe that can happen. I fully believe we can still hold people accountable to being high performing athletes or turning up and training. But if someone has got debilitating period pain that stops her giving the quality or quantity of training that you need her to give every month and you are not willing to have a conversation about it more fool you, because you've just lost the opportunity to help the athlete train better, more, and then therefore, you know, achieve what she wants to achieve. And there's a brilliant quote by a guy called James Clear. And it, it says, you, we do not rise to the level of our, goals. We fall to the level of our systems. And I love it in the context of this, because I think a lot of female athletes are struggle to achieve their goals because the system hasn't been built around them that acknowledges them, not just as an athlete, but as a, as a female, as a woman with all of the things that she might need to explore. So yeah, there's no quick answer to that Sue, but I think we do need to get on board with creating more compassionate spaces in sport where we can be vulnerable. And I, I guess the first step to that is educating and taking the scariness away of these topics because, you know, if we walk into rooms and say the word periods and, um, breasts, and my colleague Baz talks about the pelvic floor and talks about vaginas and everyone goes, oh my God, you just said all of those words that are really…, and we just say, you know what, they're just words but they're really important words to say, if someone wants to talk about that, because as a coach, they might say, Emma, I'm not gonna talk about underwear for bras. I'm not gonna talk about periods because that's private, that's the mum's job. But then when I say, you know, if your athlete is suffering from heavy periods, a) she's at higher risk of anemia and that's your business, cause that affects performance. Or if you're sending her off on a three hour training ride, she might be anxious about where to change her period products. So just by having a conversation about what that looks like and what she's, how she's gonna manage, it will help free up her head space. Once I make it that coach's business, then we start to have a motivation. And then if we can create the spaces where it's okay to have those conversations, then I think we're on our way to being in a, a good place.

Sue Anstiss:

It's huge. Isn't it? I there's so many areas I can go to. I've got questions here. We've got so many questions for you. and we're obviously talking more publicly about the need to safeguard young women also from sexual abuse in sport. So I wonder whether as safeguarding rightly becomes more of a focus, whether that means male coaches are even less likely to feel comfortable talking to athletes about periods and sports bars and so on. So do you see almost as we're experiencing a really positive shift in having that conversation, there's almost another area that makes people feel more uncomfortable to have that conversation too.

Emma Ross:

Yeah, I absolutely think so. And I think, you know, I've heard more than one person say, I wouldn't be allowed to say that. And I think that's where again, education support is really vital because what we don't want to do, a) we don't want to stop the, the safeguarding journey because you're right. It's gaining momentum. And it so important because one of the biggest things we need is for girls and women to feel safe in sport at whatever level they're, operating at. But we can't let that be the excuse, not to talk about these things. And I think that's where people need help and support. = I guess it's, you know, sometimes we use the, the journey of mental health as, as, um, quite similar in terms of that didn't get spoken about in sport.  No one wanted to be, be vulnerable enough to share those struggles, but it was happening everywhere, but people needed help and support about how to talk about it, cuz it can be very damaging if we don't talk about it in the right way. And the same in this regard, we need to have boundaries around these topics of, you know, periods, menstrual health, pelvic health, because yeah, absolutely. That could be used as a vehicle for people who want to abuse it. It has been the, the story that was covered about, ‘my coach who abused me’ by one of the runners that pelvic health was used as a, as an excuse even to,  access those girls. So we do need to create really strong boundaries and that's where, that's where we, we try and really help with, with their education. And we call them guiderails because essentially we're creating the guiderails to say, what are your boundaries? if you're a teacher, for example, you're not going into school and talking about the girls breasts and their bras, you're talking about a piece of sports kit, just like you would say, you know, have you got your mouth guard? Have you molded it properly? Does it fit? cause if it doesn't, it's gonna muck up your mouth and feel uncomfortable and that's gonna play on your mind while you're… it's exactly the conversation, same conversation about a sports bra. So, and that's why I think people need help because at the moment we haven't, we haven't educated or talked about this at all and you throw the topics out there and then people are like, I can't possibly get this right. And, and that that's sort of scaredness is, is genuine. And I think it's really important to support that

Sue Anstiss:

It's fascinating. Yeah, isn't it fascinating so much to do, but so much that can be done too. In the last few years in elite sport, we have seen some really positive moves with clubs like Chelsea and others openly talking about tracking menstrual cycles and talking to athletes about their bodies are from where you sit, are things really changing. Do you see a real shift in those conversations?

Emma Ross:

I, I can't say no because honestly I think they really are. But let's be under no illusion that one club and one headline represents the whole of the sport like football. Yes, when you have resources and when you have lots of support staff, you can do lovely, brilliant things. And when you don't have quite so much of that, that's those things aren't getting done. and coaches aren't being educated and practitioners aren't being educated, even sport doctors, aren't being educated, GPS aren't well educated enough around things that are related to female health in sport, like energy deficiency and under fueling, which that can then affect your menstrual health, which can then affect your bone health and can then affect your long term health. So we can't be in our under any illusion that everyone's walking around really well equipped to do this better. So we are not where we need to be Sue and I think… to give you an example, one of the topics we are really passionate about is pelvic health.

And we know that urinary stress incontinence has a prevalence in, in athletes that sometimes can be as high as it is in postnatal women, particularly the ones who are doing very high impact work. Um, and so leaking urine in and having bladder and bowel issues is, is not healthy at all. And we need to sort that out. It's a, it's a impacting girls physically, and it's impacting girls emotionally. You can imagine the sort of shame and embarrassment anxiety that might surround, things like stress incontinence. Yet when we try and ask sports to talk about it openly, they cannot do it, so they can, they can get us in to help them with that problem and say, we see it a lot here. Can you help us? And then when we say, would you like to talk about this openly, that you're addressing this issue? They say, oh, we can't, we can't say that. And for some reason, topics like that, haven't got to the place where periods have got, where we, you know, Chelsea are proud to say they are tracking menstrual cycles or getting their girls more body literate. we still aren't in a space where all the women's health topics can get, get thrown into that arena. because there's still this very sort of tied up in shame and embarrassment and medicalisation, whereas actually, gosh, how brilliant it would it be if sports clubs came out and said, you know, as part of just duty of care, as part of our looking after our athletes, we always screen for pelvic health issues and we know what to do when the girls have them. Yes. Lots of the girls do have them. That's why we've put in a program to make sure that they don't or to rectify that pro -  it would be amazing to hear that because it would be amazing for all of the girls out there who playing rugby on a Sunday and when they go in the scrum, they leak urine. Or when they're doing a heavy lift CrossFit, they leak urine and they're so embarrassed about it. And they think it's abnormal, but they never talk about it. So we, we need to do better. I went on a bit of a ramp there, Sue, sorry, we need to do better. And we don't need to just accept that. You know, cause we heard it once over here and once over there that it's done, we've got decades of work ahead of us. 

Sue Anstiss:

How do you personally not get overwhelmed with a job that needs to be done?

Emma Ross:

Oh, Sue,  I do all the time. I do. I sometimes sit there and just go, I don't really know where to start and obviously I'm not gonna fit - You know, I don't, I'm not that egoistical,

Sue Anstiss:

You’re on a one-woman mission to change…!

Emma Ross:

I don't think I can fix it all. And one of the things that we do at the Well is try and have this ripple effect where if we can help coaches, then they can help athletes. If we can help teachers, then they can help the hundreds of girls in their care. So we do… I do get overwhelmed because it only takes another new story about something that's not quite so positive that I mean, it was really horrible last year, to hear about women feeling very unsafe, exercising outside because of some of the events that were happening. And I'm like, where are we where we can't, even when girls are motivated to get up and get out we can't keep them safe. And I just, I do have days where it feels very hard because of the bigger issues at play here. We've gotta keep just plodding on, you know, the score don't you. and we've got lots of, you know, the one, the one brilliant thing that I found on this journey is that there are an amazing community of people working in sport and physical activity who want it to be a better place for women across all of the areas. And because they're also intertwined,  that we're all, we're all championing for the same thing. And that isn't is brilliant. It's really wonderful to know that you've got this community of people who are on the same mission as you, so yeah. Sometimes overwhelmed, but a lot of the time hopeful.

Sue Anstiss:

Fantastic. That's my, that's my mantra. Yes, too. Um, I just wanna go back. You mentioned the Well there, so you said at the, well, two years ago with Baz Moffat and Dr. Bella Smith, can you tell us a little bit more about the organisation, what it's doing and I love that, I guess, that ripple effect of having impact and that going out across the industry.

 Emma Ross:

Yeah, so I, so I really, I left the EIS, in 2020 really to it, it was sort of in my bones to broaden this message out. And, and whilst I was loving making that change in the high performance system, woman system, I could just, you know, I was hearing from girls schools and talented female athletes in sports who were outside of that system, going, ‘God, we need that help over here' . And, and I really, it was, I was really, really, keen to, to spread the word.

Emma Ross:

So along the journey, I met two amazing women who come from very different backgrounds. So I obviously came from sports science, Baz was a former GB rower. So she'd been a woman in that system that didn't particularly acknowledge or support her whole female health. And she has lots of reflections about that. But actually, after she retired from sport, she became a woman's health coach and specialise in pelvic floor and then we had Dr. Bella who is a GP and sort of really helps us with that medical aspect of all women's health and sees every day women in her surgery with, with lots of different challenges. So we looked at us as a three and went, wow, across the women's life, we probably have the experience and the expertise to really help acknowledge and support everything that's happening. why don't we team up? And that's exactly what we did. And we kind started small and said, well, perhaps we'll just go and like make some worksheets to give in, give to sports and, and FAQs. And they went, you know what? The, like, this is a big, big challenge, big problem.

Like let's go big and see, see where we can get. And I say go big, but just, just by giving ourselves a platform to try and reach as many people as we can. Um, and yeah, that's our journey so far we're we are loving it. It's really hard work. Um, but we are loving it. And what we've found is that some people aren't ready yet. Some, sports aren't ready yet to do this. They they'll say to us, you know, can, can you come in and do an hour? And could you cover off, all of the life stages of women and perhaps all of those issues, you know, menstrual health, pelvic health, breast health, well like in 60 minutes, well we could try, but we, no one will be able to hear what we are saying in our speed talking fashion.

So it's still a tick box, right? So it's still a like, ‘oh, you can do women  stuff. And then once we've done it now, probably like in the next Olympic cycle, we'll do it again. But there are sports that really get it and they say, right, we know we need education. We know we need tons of it. And we know we then need to like help people turn that into actual action and we need to change culture. And, and so it's been brilliant to find those people because they will be, the pioneers of, of changing their little parts of the system.  So yeah, it's been an exciting journey and we are, we are learning lots about running our own business in particular but just about, about changing and challenging, which is, is tricky.

Sue Anstiss:

And what are those thoughts? You mentioned the England netball, you announced recently a relationship with them. I’m interested to know what they're doing for their female athletes and what sets them apart, perhaps from other sports at the moment.

Emma Ross:

We've love working with netball,  mainly because they they've really grabbed it with both hands, you know, and they've gone and perhaps it's because they are a sport for  - proudly for girls and women and mean there is now also men, um, playing, which is really brilliant, but proudly a sport for girls and women. And yet they had forgotten some of this stuff, you know, not that that they, it wasn't that they weren't leaving women out. They were just sort of empowering all these girls and women to play netball and playing netball every life stage. Yet they hadn't necessarily educated themselves and supported their players to understand their bodies and how to get the best out of them. They focus very much on netball and enjoying and, and performing at netball. And I think they probably thought, actually, gosh, if we are not doing this, you know, as a, as a sport that's paid mainly by are girls and women.

Emma Ross:

And that has coaches who are girls and women. and, and as a sport, who's got programs to try and encourage women back to netball after having their families or walking netball for women in their older years. You're like, if we can't do this, you know, who can, so they've, they've really been brilliant at engaging with what this could look like. And really what we want to do is use netball as a vehicle to improve body literacy and women of all ages and of all levels, um, so that their, their bodies never hold them back from doing their sport. So they're never the ones who are saying, you know, know what I've just come back from having a baby I've started to play netball. I'm leaking clearly my body is not, not up for sport anymore. You know, managing menopause symptoms, through to girls at the other end who are starting, you know, going through puberty.

Emma Ross:

And we know that, you know, we lose so many girls from sport, but also from netball in puberty. So if we can help girls understand their body better, can we help them stay in their sport? Because their sport is the thing that's helping them understand their body better. So we are, we are working out a brilliant program that we're gonna roll out, um, across netball, right across their participation base, and then through to touching into the, to the Roses as well. So yeah, really excited for, for that work to come over the next couple of years.

Sue Anstiss:

And you touched on that there didn't you,  that journey across, a woman's life and how sport can impact that. So how do you feel sport and being involved in sport can help women through those different life stages?

Emma Ross:

It's such an amazing experience sport. So whether you are participating, whether you are going out for a run on your own, or whether you are doing team sports or you are part of a bigger sporting community, the first thing is,  it's such an amazing experience, emotional experience. So, you know, when I run, I run to feel free and to clear my head and I,  it's, it's amazing. Whereas, you know, you talk to other women and they're part of a team and they just love, love, love their family of sporting peers. Um, so there, there's the really important experience of sport that sort of unites us whatever we are doing at across our life. But I think, you know, again, going back to the scientist in me, we, we have non-negotiable evidence about the benefits of physical activity across all of our life stages, particularly as women, because we go through these different life stages to men. You know, we start our periods when we are in puberty and they can be painful and challenging and tricky. Um, we might be pregnant, we might have babies, we might have a postnatal journey. We certainly go through menopause where our hormones, you know, again, go through this slightly chaotic period. And we know that exercise of some form physically and emotionally helps that us through that stage helps us through process. It keeps us physically fit. It keeps us emotionally fit. And also it helps us navigate some of the added things that are physically and emotionally happening as part of being pregnant, being postnatal, going through menopause. And I think it's important for us not to put pressure on ourselves to think that we have to perform at the highest level across our whole life. Just moving our bodies is, is a really brilliant tool for helping navigate life physically and emotionally.

And so it's so important that we, we give ourselves the best shot at having a really brilliant relationship with physical activity and movement across our life. We sort of fall out of love with sport so early as girls in our teenage years, when we become body conscious, when our bodies are hugely changing. And we think, you know what, on top of all of this that's happening, my boobs grew, or start of my periods. I feel emotional. Like I just, I don't need sport as another thing to do. Once we lose girls there, we might have lost them for the rest of their life. So we really need to encourage people to be building up like really loving relationships with movement and finding a movement they love because it can help us so much physically and emotionally as women

Sue Anstiss:

I'm just gonna finally ask, I clearly, there's so much that you have achieved and are gonna go on to achieve too, but what are the plans that you have personally, perhaps for the next five years?

Emma Ross:

Uh, I w I want to see change at the highest level. I don't think if we leave a lot of this change to, you know, women themselves or the teachers, I think that's too much accountability to be put on those people. I, you know, sometimes use concussion as an example. If an athlete got concussed on the field of play and they, they came off and you, and you said, you want to, to go back on, they'd say, yeah, too right, I'm fine. Shake my head, give me a sponge. And I'm off. And there are laws and rules that govern the fact that we need to look after that athlete. We need to not let them back on. We need to monitor their recovery, et cetera, et cetera. And then they can go back in 2, 3, 4 weeks, whatever.  Those rules are set in place to look after athletes, to care for them and to make sure their journey in sport, whether it's participation through to podium is long and healthy. We don't have that yet for girls and women in all of the aspects of health and our bodies that, that we work work around. So I would love to be able to influence over the next few years at the highest level, some governance and guidance and rules and regulations that ensures that any girl doing sport knows that they will be supported and nurtured, and that their health will be prioritized and not compromised as I believe it is being currently. And so we can make sport, you know, a much better place for girls and women by getting in at the highest level. So banging on number 10 or something, watch out for me.

Sue Anstiss:

Thanks so much to Emma for taking the time to talk to me.  Every time we speak, I learn so much more. I really hope that you found a conversation useful too.  If you'd like to hear more from other incredible female trailblazers in sport, head to fearlesswomen.co.uk, where you'll find details of all of my guests from this and the previous series. And if you are keen to hear more from sports scientists, then do look out for the episodes where I talk to Dr. Pippa Grange, the author and sports psychologist who transformed the England men's football team, and also to Dawn Scott, hugely respected sports physiologist who led the US national team to win two world cups and Olympic gold.  As well as listening to all the podcasts on the website, you can also find out more about the Women's Sport Collective, a free network for all women working in sport. You can sign up for Changing the Game, our free weekly newsletter, which highlights the developments in women's sport and there's more about my book Game On, the unstoppable rise of women's sport. 

Thanks again to Sport England for backing in the Game Changers through the National Lottery and to Sam Walker, who does a fantastic job as our executive producer, along with Rory Auskerry on sound production. Finally, thank you to my brilliant colleague, Kate Hannon who does so much with me behind the scenes at Fearless Women.  Do come and say hello on social media while you are finding on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook @SueAnstiss.  The Game Changers, fearless women in sport.