The Game Changers
In this award-winning podcast Sue Anstiss talks to trailblazers in women sport. These are the individuals who are knocking down barriers and challenging the status quo for women and girls everywhere. Along with openly sharing their historic careers, what drives them and how they’ve dealt with tough challenges, each episode explores key issues for equality in sport and beyond.
We’re incredibly grateful to Sport England who support The Game Changers through a National Lottery award.
You can find out about all the guests at https://www.fearlesswomen.co.uk/thegamechangers Fearless Women in Sport
The Game Changers
Baz Moffat: The Women’s Health Pioneer
Baz Moffat is having an extraordinary impact in the world of women’s health.
A former GB Rower, Baz 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.
Baz was in the GB Rowing team from 2005-2008 – medalling at the World Championships in 2007. With degrees in Sports Science and Health Related Behaviour Change, Baz ran personal training and fitness businesses before moving into women’s health and in 2021, co-founding The Well HQ.
Baz is also the co author of ‘The Female Body Bible’.
We explore so much in this fascinating episode from the challenges of competing in sport at the highest level to the systemic changes needed to accommodate female athletes today.
Baz is refreshingly open about the challenge of running a mission-driven business whilst addressing taboos that have existed in society for hundreds of years.
It’s inspiring to hear more about the cultural shift that is finally taking place, as Baz shares her hopes for a more inclusive future in sport and physical activity.
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
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 who are knocking down barriers and challenging the status quo for women and girls everywhere. What can we learn from their journeys as we explore key issues around equality in sport and beyond? I'd like to start with a big thank you to our partners, Sport England, who support The Game Changers through a National Lottery Award. I'm excited to say that in this, the 18th series of The Game Changers, I'll be talking to founders and entrepreneurs the women who have set up organisations that help change the landscape for all women and girls in sport.
Sue Anstiss:My guest today is Baz Moffat, a former GB rower who 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. Baz was in the GB Rowing Team from 2005 to 2008, medalling at the World Championships in 2007. With degrees in Sports Science and Health-related Behaviour Change, Baz ran personal training and fitness businesses before moving into women's health and, in 2021, co-founding the Well HQ. Baz is having an extraordinary impact in the world of women's health. So, Baz, can we start with your sporting background? You are an international rower, as I mentioned, but where did your love of sport or interest in sport begin?
Baz Moffat:I think I just was born loving sport and I don't really know how like neither of my parents are sporty we had a garden and I just did handstands for years against the wall trying to get myself to do a one-handed cartwheel or a no-handed cartwheel, playing tennis against the wall, trying to drag any friends in. And I just, I just love sport.
Baz Moffat:I remember my mum getting me two books like one was the it was a Barcelona Olympics a long time ago now, but it was a it was a Getty kind of you know book of all the imagery to do with the Barcelona Olympics and just going through those pictures and thinking, wow, like I want to be that. And I had another one about the Royal Ballet School and I was like, wow, like I want to be that. And I just, from a really young age, I just knew that I wanted to be an athlete and I didn't have any talent, I just had this drive in me to do everything and so I just did, I just loved it, I really loved it.
Sue Anstiss:And did you play team sport as well?
Baz Moffat:Yeah, yeah, played team sport, everything like every kind of sport, I think probably gymnastics, probably. I'm pretty long and tall. I think that probably didn't last very long in that, but I gave it a good crack. Yeah, I gave everything a go.
Sue Anstiss:I'd love to see you do the handstands and one-handed cartwheels at some point now, not anymore. When did you find uh rowing? How did you discover rowing?
Baz Moffat:oh really really late. So, um, like my, my main sport as a teenager was athletics. Really loved it, got to English schools level kind of, got to university. But I think you know we may or may not go deeper into this, but I think that classic moved away from a club with quite a good support system, went to university where everyone just seemed to be better, like training harder, doing so much more training than I'd ever done, and so I got into that downward spiral of training, more, eating, less, attempted to be a great performer and actually everything was going wrong. But I just did more of all the wrong stuff.
Baz Moffat:Do you know, like I think, and you hear that story over and over again with athletes. So it kind of got to my final year of of university and I was like I'm never gonna fill this dream, so let's just stop. And I then got a job in London and I attempted to do sport for fun, which I I was like, oh, like, maybe I'll do sport for fun, like pick rowing, which is a really stupid sport to choose, uh, for fun. But I what really appealed to me was the team, like the team element, which I'd missed in athletics. You're part of an athletics team, but everything's on yourself. So I joined a rowing club in Hackney called the Lee, which was wonderful, at the age of 21 when I left uni, and then it kind of all started from there.
Sue Anstiss:Well that's interesting, isn't it? I assumed it was at university, so I guess historically it's been a sport that women have found later at uni. So there's Olympic champions, and so on as well too. Is that still the case for women's rowing, do you think?
Baz Moffat:Yeah, I don't know if I'd get in the team now, like in terms of like how late I started. I think it is easier to transition into rowing, like if you've got, if you've got a body. You know, like I kind of joke about how I did everything at school, but I had a body, I knew how to move my body, I had good like physical literacy, if you like. Like I could kind of like I could pick up most sports and be reasonably good at them, and so I'm trainable and coachable. And so I think that rowing it's really complicated but really simple.
Baz Moffat:It is one thing, it is one stroke and it accompanied by a mindset that doesn't mind doing the same old thing like over and over again. So you've got, you have quite a high tolerance for boredom and a high tolerance for pain and I think that if you kind of have that mindset and that ability and that sort of physicality, you can pick it up later on. And also I think that rowing is the fitness is so specific it's strength and endurance that you don't mature. Even if you've started from a younger age, you will peak in your late twenties. So you do have time. It's not like swimming or tennis or gymnastics. You know where lots of people could be world-class at 18, 19, 20. Like you rarely find that in rowing, so I think it's an older sport, so to speak.
Sue Anstiss:And for people that may have never rowed before, what was it that you loved about being in the water and, I guess, being on a boat? You talked about that repetitiveness and so on, but what is it about rowing that you loved, do you?
Baz Moffat:know what I think it was. It goes back to that original thing. I was from a young age age. I wanted to be an international athlete and I was like this could be my sport. I didn't really care what sport got me to being an international athlete. I didn't love rowing. I enjoyed it enough, obviously, but I didn't love rowing. I love. I wanted to be an international athlete and I loved being part of a team. Like that ability to spend every minute of every day with your best friends, like failing and succeeding and going to the places where you never thought were possible, but still being there for each other that team element was. I absolutely adored it.
Sue Anstiss:And what was your approach to training? It does sound like that kind of very tough approach, and obviously then you got into the GB pathway there. So what was the approach to those coaches in terms of female athletes at the time?
Baz Moffat:So I was after. You know, the National Lottery funding came in after Athens. So I was kind of after that first wave. So we had brilliantly successful women rowers at the time who had this amazing sculling squad that the women's quad were doing absolutely brilliantly but we didn't really have a big base within women's rowing. So I was kind of that first cohort through. That kind of like then was building this team Really really great in terms of like getting equal access.
Baz Moffat:So, like you know, from that National Lottery funding, like we'd have the same quality boats as the men, we'd go on the same training camps, we'd have equal access to the same amount of coaches and training facilities. I mean this was a long time ago now, so like it was kind of like nearly like 20 years ago. Like at that stage the conversation was about equality, it was about being the same. So what I'm now talking about at the Well it didn't feel like it wasn't being talked about because we just it wasn't feel like it wasn't being talked about because we just it wasn't even a conversation that was happening anywhere. So looking back, of course, like you go oh gosh, we really were missing a trick, but no one was doing it. It didn't feel like, oh, there was no injustice, because we didn't even know it was a thing that we should be talking about.
Sue Anstiss:And why did you stop your?
Baz Moffat:rowing career. I got dropped a month before Beijing. So I was kind of like so Beijing was the Olympic Games that I was aiming for. So you know, in rowing really the Olympics you have world championships every year, but the Olympics is what everyone is going for and I was in the women's eight. We hadn't qualified for the Olympics for a very long time and we qualified the boat in 2007. But in rowing you don't qualify the athletes, you qualify the boat. So we qualified the boat, but every decision that year had just gone my way, like it wasn't like.
Baz Moffat:I was, you know, a solid person in that boat. I was kind of on the edges of the boat and then in 2008, kind of every decision went against me by a tiny, tiny amount and I and I was hanging on for dear life. But unfortunately, like a month or so before the Olympic Games, I got dropped and at that stage I was hanging on for dear life. But unfortunately, a month or so before the Olympic Games, I got dropped and at that stage I was 30 and London was the next Games and I was gutted. Of course I was. But I have absolutely no regrets. I have thrown every single thing into this. Maybe I'm just not good enough to get onto the Olympic team and kind of that's okay, but could I? If I do this for another four years and the same thing happens and I'm 34 and I don't have a job and I don't have a career and I don't, that is massive and I was like do you know what? I'm not prepared to take that risk. I need to kind of crack on now and I think that I it was.
Baz Moffat:It was quite a straightforward decision for me. It wasn't a kind of of like shall I shant. I was like this has been so hard and I know being an athlete is hard, but when you're in that zone of being the last, like you know, kind of really worried about your selection, it means every single training session I did mattered, like I could not take my foot off the gas for any single session. So, even like a core stability circuit, I was like I've got to be on it, I've got to be pushing through. So, being in that stress state mentally, I was like wow, and it was taking its time. I wasn't healthy, like I wasn't a healthy person, like mentally or physically. I definitely wasn't a healthy person in that space and I just knew it was time. I was like that's okay, like I've done everything I can, but it was time yeah that fabulous approach to have, isn't it?
Sue Anstiss:I guess, then, that recognition that you're not going to push on for another four years. What do you do now in terms of maintaining your fitness? Have you got other competitive sports still? Are there other things you do?
Baz Moffat:No, like when I stopped rowing, I did the classic kind of. You know, I did lots of long distance swimming, I did some long distance running events, kind of just like threw myself back into stuff. I don't really know what I'm doing right now, sue, I'm doing a bit of everything. I play netball, which I adore, on a Monday night with my mum friends. I haven't really found my groove, you know. And then every time I go I'm going to do something, like I get injured and it's so annoying, like I hate having a body that, like my, has always been amazing, like like it's kind of whatever I've wanted it to do, it can do. And I'm now in a point where if you haven't run for a few weeks, you can't just go right, I'm gonna go for a run. You have to build up into it and you have to do a massive, great big warm-up and you have to cool down and I know that.
Baz Moffat:I was a personal trainer for years and that's what I told women they had to be doing. But to actually have to do it, it's like I don't enjoy that. So I'm I'm not, I'm not in my groove, I don't, I haven't, I'm not entering challenges or events like, uh, it's a really it's a different time of life, isn't it? But I am, because I'm definitely kind of on the cusp of being perimenopausal. I'm not, I'm ready to be perimenopausal. So I'm really focusing on Pilates and strength training and I I am kind of enjoying it, but I'm not loving it, but I'm kind of that's kind of what I'm doing. Yeah, it's the right thing to do.
Sue Anstiss:I love that honesty. You say you studied sports science and also went on to complete a master's in health-related behaviour change. So what were your ambitions when you started those degrees? Well, I know that when I started my sports science, I wanted to be a PE teacher, but what did you want to be at the beginning? As you?
Baz Moffat:started out, you know what I didn't know and my mum was like head of not at my school, but my mum was head of sixth form and, like, give her her due. She just said, baz, do what you love. Like, if you don't know what you want to do like in life and I didn't at like 18, I had no clue she's like do what you love. I'm like, well, I still love sport, like this is what I want to do, and so I didn't know. I just didn't know and I and I think that I love the sports science degree. But then the the masters I did at Bristol was around behavior change and that's what I really, really love, like that health related. But how do we actually get people to change their behavior? But I still didn't know what my job would be like. I kind of just knew that that's what really fascinated me.
Sue Anstiss:And how did your interest in your passion for women's health emerge? How did that happen?
Baz Moffat:From having children. After rowing I became a personal trainer with a great friend of mine and we set up a personal training business and loved it. But I kind of it wasn't like feeding my soul, do you know, like I kind of was like training a lot of people that would complain about their bonuses or their pensions or like you know, and they were chronically, like always a bit ill. It was like a really different population that I'd never been a part of before and they rock up late or they'd cancel their sessions and I just couldn't quite like tap into that. I was like I don't get this, like you've paid me money, like you've got an appointment, like turn up. So I kind of was like didn't quite. It really frustrated me. But then I had my children and it was the first time personally that I felt massively out of my depth physically. Like childbirth, especially my first birth, physically blew my mind. I was like how can I not do this? Like how can I have been kind of? You know, I know I said I was the worst in the boat, but I was one of the best athletes in the world, but how has childbirth had such an impact on me and how was I so bad at it and I don't mean like like I really struggled with it and then after that I just had so much more empathy and sympathy for women in general and I had a.
Baz Moffat:I had another child very soon after my first baby and it was an amazing experience and I'd done a lot of work with doulas and I'd really looked into like the power of the woman's body and how do you get the best out of the female side of you, and and I had this incredible birth experience and I was like wow, like that was so powerful. A woman's body is amazing. And I and I was like, right, I, I just want to work with women in a. I don't want to be a midwife, don't want to be a doula, I definitely want to work with women in a physical activity sense and I want to really help them tap into their bodies, because we're not doing that right now. And so that was kind of the first part of the journey, and again I didn't. Again, this was my youngest has now just turned nine, so this was like nearly nine years ago there wasn't. This space that I am now in has accelerated so quickly.
Baz Moffat:I think we kind of forget, like when I look to train with people, I was training with an absolutely pioneering woman called Jelly Burrell who was teaching pre and postnatal trainers like myself to coach squats and deadlift and lunges, and the sector was like you can't do that, because at that stage it was like rest, rest, rest, rest, do not move. Maybe do some aqua aerobics, maybe do some walking, maybe do some gentle, gentle mummy yoga. Nobody was training pre and postnatal women and it was seen as dangerous. And so think how far we've come in a really short amount of time. But as I started working with her, I broadened it out, I suppose, and not just did that pre and postnatal zone and pelvic floor and pelvic floor health has been a real focus for you too.
Sue Anstiss:I love that you're so open about talking about your own experiences, which is kind of really inspiring, isn't it? And I wonder whether that sometimes that is the problem that we don't really talk about the issues we face either with family or with other women too.
Baz Moffat:It's difficult, isn't it? Because you don't? I suppose the reason why I do it is because the way that the fitness industry presents itself and markets itself is very much on that like perfect aesthetic, perfect body. Look at what I have done or look at what I am doing and look how healthy and well I am, but actually, like they're just genetically like that. Like you know, like I am never going to be size eight and I'm just never going to be like that. Like you know, like I am never going to be size eight and I'm just never going to be like that. And I just think that the women that I connect to have an authenticity about them. And I'm like right, if I connect to women with an authenticity about them, then surely people will connect to me if I have that authenticity and I don't have to pretend I don't have to be perfect. And I also feel that it's so easy as a coach, whatever setting you're in, to give advice. But unless you've done the work yourself, like I don't think you're in any position to give that advice. So you know, advice would be like do your pelvic floor exercise every day, do your stretching, or you know so.
Baz Moffat:From that first birth experience. I went therapy. It took me a long time to work out. I needed it like four years, four years after having my first baby. But when I did it I was like, oh my goodness, like that was so powerful and now I feel I can talk to people about how important that is. It just feels very superficial and surface level if you haven't done it yourself, and it doesn't mean you have to have experienced everything to give advice if you haven't done it yourself, and it doesn't mean you have to have experienced everything to give advice. But I think that if you are walking through life doing the work on you, you have a really good understanding of how hard that is and I think that's very important.
Sue Anstiss:Yeah, fantastic to hear. And so, in terms of your meeting Bella Smith and Emma Ross, how did that happen? When you was it 2021, you launched the well or 2020?
Baz Moffat:I can't remember. It's COVID time, we're coming up to the end of year four, so we've, I think, yeah, so 2021, yeah, it was that that's when you kind of launched the start of that, but so it was all coincidence. So I think that I'd had my two children. I was doing personal training and group work within sort of southwest London, but I just knew that when I got my youngest into reception I was like I need to go big with this, because I can't believe how little women know about their bodies. It is extraordinary the basic, fundamental information I am giving them and they are paying me quite a lot of money. I felt to kind of tell them like how to do a pelvic floor exercise, how often they should go to the toilet, how to do a squat. I'm like this is insane.
Baz Moffat:So a friend of mine introduced me to Dr Bella and I was just talking about what I was doing and he was like oh, like you must meet Dr Bella. And so met Dr Bella and we started to do menopause talks together in like universities and corporately and it was incredible because we combined that medical with that holistic and that lifestyle and it landed really, really well. So I was like great like this is, we can carry on doing this. And then I don't know if you remember, you know, when the Telegraph Women in Sports Supplement launched it was International Women's Day and the big sort of centerpiece was all around this project that UK Sport were doing around female athletes and it was all about Dr Emma Ross and she was talking about menstrual cycles, bras and pelvic health. I was like wow, this is amazing health. I was like, wow, this is amazing. But I was like I don't think she knows as much about pelvic health as she's like I can tell.
Baz Moffat:I'm pretty sure that I can help her with this, and so I was like I'm gonna try and find this woman. I'd been out of the system for a while then, so I just had to guess her email address. You know, like when you? You know I knew some people but I couldn't work out. So I like tracked her down. She ignored me for quite a while and I think Kath Granger said to her oh, like you know, you should talk to Baz, and anyway, so she did, and we met up in this coffee shop in Clapham and it was kind of quite full at the time and then we started talking, we started sharing stories. We were like we had so much to talk about. We were there for hours and I thought let's put on, why don't we just give it a crack and let's just talk do a menstrual cycle workshop, let's see how this lands again.
Baz Moffat:This was like this was pre-covid and we did it at a rowing club down in putney and people paid. They paid good money to be there and I assumed it would be athletes and people that went to yoga classes and crossfit classes, but actually it was full of sports doctors, sports physios, football coaches at the big football clubs. I was like, oh my goodness, like they don't know this. This is like the people that are in charge of women's sport don't know this. And I was like, right, we are on something now. We have got three people that are experts in their field. We can hold an audience, we can present the science in a way that everyone can understand, and we all have this inherent belief that you educate people and then allow them to make the right choices. I didn't know what we were going to do, but I was like the three of us are incredible, like we are a great team. We need to work out how to do something, and it kind of all started from there, that's fantastic, I didn't know that.
Sue Anstiss:I love you tracking down Dr Emma Ross that's so funny who was also a lovely guest on the Game Changers as well. I was looking back after series 10 or something quite some time ago and what was the original ambition then? That's amazing, isn't it? I do remember seeing kind of more the work that you did or hearing about the work that you did in the beginning, but I'm interested to know, I guess, where that was and then also how that has evolved and changed, as you've evolved and changed and learned more too yeah, um, I think you know we were a business first of all, so we had to make money.
Baz Moffat:So it was kind of you know, when you're, when you're a business, you kind of, even if you kind of know what you want to do, you have to take anything. You have to take kind of any money that's going. So whether that's a corporate talk, whether that's a small talk in a school or whatever it is, you just like keep chipping away. So at the start it was, it was all around female health education and what was really important to us was that it wasn't just menstrual cycle, because I think a lot of people were well, not many people doing anything at all, to be quite honest, back then, but the people who were is very like specific menstrual cycle, and so we were very broad in our all topics we covered. We wanted to talk about everything that happened differently and exclusively inside of a female's body. And I think you know, like with all businesses, you kind of it was lots of trial and error. It was like let's work in school, let's work in sport, let's work in corporates, that like we had all these you know various plans and and things and and just kind of got going and I think we just kind of, like you know, picked up bits and backs of work as we were going, and then my philosophy is always go where the energy is. Like this is hard enough. Like you can't. You can't convince people that are already, like you know, got their arms folded, with that blank look on their face, who are like you need to convince me that this is a good idea. Like you need to go where people like already it's hard enough, even when the people are enthusiastic, let alone when they haven't got any. So we just kind of went where the enthusiasm was.
Baz Moffat:I think over this last four years, thankfully, more and more people have come into this space. Now lots of people will say it's saturated. It is not. There is still. This is. This is huge. But we have been able to really define our lane and really say this is what we do. This is why we are different to everyone else out there. If you want this kind of support, come to us. Like, if you want different kind of things, go to different people.
Baz Moffat:So, where we are now, we only really work with people now that want to make real systemic change. So we are beyond a webinar and a leaflet and a show up and do a talk. We will do that, but it has to be part of a bigger plan. So we want to do strategic systemic change within organizations and it has to be sustainable, which generally means it's a train the trainer model, so it's a kind of like most organizations use us as that sort of hub of information and that, that credibility, which is essential because quality assurance in female health like there isn't any, like there isn't any police out there monitoring oh, are you actually a bra fitter? Are you actually a menstrual cycle coach? Are you actually a menopause expert? Like there's no one out there, like you can call yourself whatever. So being that go-to place of credible information, but then that, but then being able to activate it with organizations is like is our sweet spot right now that's really interesting.
Sue Anstiss:No, and I can. I can see that almost watching from afar, the change in the shift and kind of that need for that systemic change. So, in terms of a, I guess just painting the picture where we are today, why is the Well HQ and what you're doing still so needed in 2024?
Baz Moffat:I think anyone listening to this, I would challenge anyone. It would be interesting to see has anyone got a budget line for female health education? I don't think so, and that's why our job is so hard, because people don't come with like, oh, we've got this budget to spend. This year it's generally, oh, we've got some budget left, like from something like we've got some spare budget. That's why December and March is so busy for us, because people like are approaching their end of years and are like, oh, we've got some money, great, we'll spend that with the. Well, I will take any money, I do not mind if it's spare cash, but it would be absolutely brilliant if people had a budget line, because then that means that the people in organizations don't keep having to convince their senior leadership team or their board that this needs to be happening.
Baz Moffat:We still exist and I think we'll be around for quite a while, sue, to be quite honest, because although we are making huge gains, the pace of change is slow because there is no standard education from any governing body, from any PE, teacher, college or personal training that includes female health right now. So no one within the system is telling heads of girls games directors of women like head of pathways that only involve with women of football academies. No one is saying, oh, like, what qualifications do you have in female health? Like nobody. And until that happens, we're going to be around because we need this education embedded. And you know, if you look at all the gender gaps in sport, whether it's participation, injury rates, whatever like for us and I it is complicated and there are many reasons, but for us that cannot change until the workforce is educated.
Sue Anstiss:that's brilliant, yeah, and I I guess from this series, the podcast. I'm talking to founders and entrepreneurs, so I'm really interested in your experience of actually running your own businesses. I mean primarily the world, but also you've obviously run businesses in the past before, so so in running the well, actually, what have been the most rewarding? I'm trying to inspire other women to establish businesses too, but what have been the most kind of the elements that you love around running and owning your own business?
Baz Moffat:I love running a business because it has to work right. So, like people give us money to do a job and we have to do that job. Like we can't suddenly go three months in gosh, you know what. Like we're finding this really difficult and there's loads and there's loads of loads of reasons why we haven't done this job. Like gosh isn't that an interesting learning? Like we can't do that. Like I have to call that within a week of starting a project. If I'm like, oh right, this ain't gonna happen. Like we have to call that. We have to call that within a week of starting a project. If I'm like, oh right, this ain't going to happen. Like we have to call that we have to gather people around and we have to change direction.
Baz Moffat:I love how quick and also professional you have to be in a business. Like there is no fluff, like I don't have that. That comes with its challenges. We are not cutthroat, right, it's not like when I'm not. Like people who work for me don't have to kind of write like like they're minute by minute kind of like things down and we but it's the we have to be efficient, we have to be effective and we have to make impact because it's other people's money and that's kind of like sport, isn't? It is that when I'm, when I was training, everything I do did had to make that boat go faster or had to give me a better chance of getting in that team, and if it wasn't doing that then I wouldn't do it, and if it was doing that, I'd make sure I was doing that extraordinarily well You've obviously done this amazing, groundbreaking work and yet it's been really tough at times in terms of that commercial income.
Sue Anstiss:So when we're all talking about it and everyone's saying absolutely this is needed and isn't there, why do you think it is still so difficult to get people to you know, release that funding.
Baz Moffat:I think, because that's women's sport and I think that you know, we, we, we celebrate women's sport, quite rightly, but when you look at the money in women's sport, it is hardly anything.
Baz Moffat:So even though everybody will have kind of targets with regards to kind of gender gaps, whether that's increasing female coaches, increasing female participation, increasing retention of women in their sport or within their fitness clubs, they don't really have a plan behind it or a budget behind it. And I just find so often, like the responsibility of improving these KPIs or however you describe them within organizations is someone doing it in their spare time, like it's someone kind of like allocated, oh, it's their passion project. It's not really given the infrastructure that is required to make a change and make a difference. And I think that if people just took a step back and said, and I think that if people just took a step back and said, goodness me, like women haven't been in our sport ever, like gosh, like I don't think Sally in accounts can do this on, you know, on three evenings a week, like I think we probably need to like build a team, give us some budget, like work out who's going to happen here, and I think that we're not doing that? Who's going to happen here?
Sue Anstiss:And I think that we're not doing that, and I know the investor space is a tough place for women just generally, but especially so it feels for women in sport. Is that something you've found through the Well HQ? And I do feel we're hearing more about investors coming into the space. But what's it like from the other side, almost from the inside?
Baz Moffat:Yeah, for us again, it's been hard. I think that I think that I would. I, um, I can always get a meeting like people. I can always get a meeting. People love our story, love what we're doing. But then, when it comes to like, is this scalable when I'm going to get my money back, is this profitable?
Baz Moffat:It's like and that might be, quite honestly, my own background like I'm not a management accountant, I'm not a lawyer, I'm not, I'm I. I come from sport. I don't have that business acumen. So I find that I've had to work really hard at developing that commercial language and I'm I may be approaching A-level standard, but I've only just moved from GCSE to A-level. Like I'm not degree, I'm definitely you know people who are in that space have 10, 20 layers of knowledge, like I do about pelvic health and women's health, like anybody can ask me anything on those topics and I'd have deep, deep understanding in terms of like business I I don't, because everything I'm doing is for the first time. So people love what we're doing.
Baz Moffat:When it comes to kind of drilling down into our business and then drilling down into our forecasting, they're like oh yeah, like, come back, come back how? First of all, they say, would you like some mentoring? I'm like, no thanks, I've been over mentored, I do not need any more mentoring, I just need some financial support actually, and I need some business, or they just, they just ghost you and don't and don't come back. So we always get through a bit, but we don't. It is. You know, I'm having conversations with lots of people, as everyone in this space will be. You are always hopeful that it will be different, but like my history says that like this is pioneering work, and if you're pioneering like no one's done it so that's the challenge is like no one's done it, so therefore you don't really have like no-transcript.
Sue Anstiss:Fantastic work with england netball netball. That was just starting when I spoke to emma on the podcast. And then last year you announced this fantastic initiative with the professional women's game in football. So can you tell us a little bit about what that entails like? And I guess without leading you down the path? But actually then it's when you want proper funding to do this, rather than I've got 5k at the end of my budget not saying that they've. They've obviously, you know, have been proper NGBs funding that have been doing involved in that way.
Baz Moffat:So netball and football have been the two outstanding projects for sure, like absolutely, and they have been massive. So netball were the first people that came to us and really wanted to do something massively significant and netball her was the result of that, which was the website and then some cpd for the membership of england netball and that was wonderful work and really got people, I think, to go wow, like and I remember at that stage people were doing web like a webinar. I'm thinking that was enough, like, it was like oh gosh, like is that, what is that? What good looks like. So they were, it was absolutely fantastic and then over it's taken three years really, this piece of work we've been doing in the WSL but we've only really started talking about it this year. You know it's it's it's a small number of clubs and it's and it's also a really they're all at the same stage. They're all like really elite performers within football. But it was a relatively straightforward project and they also did an extraordinary, extraordinarily comprehensive job. They were the first governing body to mandate female health training. So it is a part of your professional license. You have to have had eight people within your club do the how to Train an Elite Female Footballers, right, so that's fantastic.
Baz Moffat:So you have to take this carrot and stick approach to female health. If you say, oh look, there's all this amazing content, would you like to do it? No one does because they don't have to, because they're not going to get a better job, they're not going to get a pay rise and all these people are really busy. They're not going to do it just because it's there. So football have mandated that everyone does this course. They've also appointed a female health lead in all the WSL and championship clubs.
Baz Moffat:Which who have we worked with? And that female health leads job is to take female health into the corners of the club. So not just like, not just the physiologist or the team doc. It's kind of can girls get access to food when they turn up to training? Oh, no, they can't, because the restaurant or the canteen's closed, because the men have left. Okay, so like, how do we make sure that women have access to food? How do we make sure that the kit man, who generally is a man, might you know in most clubs, how can we make sure the kit man is really comfortable saying to a girl we have leak proof underwear, would you like some, because it's often like the kit is there but it's a blocker because, like, no one can actually communicate with the girls that the kit is there.
Baz Moffat:So this female health leaves job is to get a strategy going that is relevant and you know and available to their club, and then they produce this best practice guidance. So the fa now has a stance and a kind of what does good look like. How should we be supporting our players pre and post natally, with their menstrual cycle and with their pelvic health? Because that guidance doesn't exist. And by having that guidance it gives the interdisciplinary teams real confidence that this is our approach to these, to these topics. So those three things have meant that it's it's not just a random bit of content that people can access if they want to in their spare time. It it's a kind of it's really embedded into the entirety of that WSL championship.
Sue Anstiss:That's fantastic, isn't it? And are they internationally? Is that quite unique what the FA is doing in that space too, yeah.
Baz Moffat:I mean we haven't done an audit, but I think it is. And when I go, you know, when we go to speak internationally, I mean, emma did a recent conference in Norway and it was full of, like international physios and they were like, how have you done this? Like, how have you got the a league to cooperate, to kind of like all these female healthies to come together and talk together? And we said, well, we said that your players, tottenham, your players this year are going to be Chelsea's players next year, are going to be Arsenal's players the year after, and we need to make our female players healthy and that's kind of all our job. We can't just make them healthy in one club, like you can't hold on to that.
Baz Moffat:And when I was rowing, it was part of David Brailsford's, you know, I know he was at cycling, but it was that marginal gains, one percenters, everyone kind of like, don't leave any stone unturned with female health. It is not a marginal gain, it is a. We are in fundamental building block stages. Do girls have access to food? Have they fit been fitted for a sports bra? Do they have a menstrual cycle? That's manageable.
Baz Moffat:Now, the science is never going to change any of those things and that's the stage we're at. There might be one or two clubs within football that are like you know, there might there might be a few examples, I suppose, of slightly more advanced than that. But fundamentally we need to build these, get these building blocks right. And so internationally, I mean, I think everyone kind of looks at the state because they've obviously got you know that they, you know their football league's great and they're like well, how come in the states they've got amazing players, but they don't. They're real, they don't do female health over there. But they have an extraordinary base and their girls are so athletic, like they have been training in systems from really young ages in soccer, so they're really athletic, really strong, and that's why, from our perspective, they're really dominant but they don't do female health.
Sue Anstiss:So I think we are, and also the interest I'm getting from other football leagues and stuff, like I don't feel anyone's doing this and it's interesting, was fantastic that obviously you've done it through the fa and wsl now too, is it, do you feel, because we've had those amazing senior women as leaders in that sport for the last few years, has that opened the doors and made a real difference in terms of yeah?
Baz Moffat:totally, totally. And you know like, sue campbell was just kind of you know like, you know like this kind of we're gonna, we're gonna do this. She wasn't the driver of it, you know like, you know like this kind of we're gonna, we're gonna do this. She wasn't the driver of it, but she was very much, you know, she. She knew what was going on, she was a part of it and I think, just giving that energy of like we are going to be world class in this space, like what does that look like Like now, if? If we can't afford to be world-class, let's work back from there. But that's my ambition and that's my vision and that's just an amazing place. Having that like how can we be the best, how can we do the best? It's such a different conversation to like ooh, like what can we afford to do, like what can we not, what can we get away with doing, to kind of tick that box. But it was a really real, visionary approach.
Sue Anstiss:Yeah, that's fantastic to hear, isn't it? And hopefully other sports and NGBs and teams will come on board, kind of following their lead. I'm going to move on, if I can, to talk about some of your public facing activity, and I loved your campaign. Call it what it Is period. Can you tell us a little bit more about that and the impact that it's had? I think language is just so important, isn't it?
Baz Moffat:Yeah, so that was something we did last year and there's something like 500 euphemisms for the word period from shark week to time of the month there's so many random words that are used and it was really inspired. I mean, this was that last year, but like Dina Asher-Smith pulled up in the European Championships after 100 metres and she explained that it was something to do with girls stuff, right, and it was. It was great that she, she felt comfortable talking about it, but she didn't use the word period. And also the commentators kind of like quickly moved on. They didn't really you could tell they didn't feel comfortable like in that space. So they said maybe she didn't warm up properly, maybe she was dehydrated. I'm like, well, maybe she's got her period and that's like what she just said.
Baz Moffat:So it was like gosh, like what can we do? And so, um, we got like you know, we were in the same group, weren't we? And I was made a call out like who knows some athletes that might be comfortable taking part in this, um, in this campaign, and you like many, many sport businesses, you have tiny, tiny marketing budgets. You're like we don't have much marketing budget but like this is what we want you to do. And we just got as many athletes to say the word period on their phone and also say like other words that they had used in the past or heard in the past. And we put together this really cool video to say like let's start calling it what it is, let's just start calling it a period. And it was just, and it just kind of gained more and more momentum. And you know what we we also got some of the athletes to kind of give us some those that were comfortable to give us their stories. And female athletes want to talk about this stuff, like I. I was an athlete when this wasn't talked about.
Baz Moffat:Now we're at this stage with with all athletes from all sports, where it's okay to talk about the human side of you, whether that's mental health issues, whether that's your relationships with other people, whether that's female health issues. We are talking and we are talking about it when we are still athletes, not not once you've retired, and we're kind of in a safer place because we don't need brand endorsement and we don't need to be selected for a team. And so these girls were so grateful for sharing their stories and having a platform. They've all still had experiences of being ashamed, embarrassed, held back by their female bodies and they want to kind of leave this legacy for girls coming in their footsteps.
Baz Moffat:Like we all do in this space, we are attempting to make the world a better place for those people coming up behind us, and I think this was a real example of that. And then you know, this year we've worked with Adidas and we've worked with Always. Who've used? They've both used Jasmine Sawyer, but they've had different athletes as well within these campaigns on education around the menstrual cycle and they're really open Like athletes, really want to talk about it like athletes really want to talk about it, and I think that is.
Sue Anstiss:That is just wonderful. It's brilliant, isn't it? It's tough, though, isn't it? You alluded earlier to the whole, the kit man with the whole. Would you like some leak-free pants? I do think there's still this level of embarrassment is that, even with families of talking about your front, bottom or whatever euphemism you might use for female parts. So I guess, what? What can be done to change that within families? But within sport, when so many men are the gatekeepers, the coaches and so on, can I have you balance? It's lovely that the female athletes are so enthusiastic to drive that change, but it is tough also, isn't it? For them.
Baz Moffat:That's really important. You said it was. It's tough. It is tough, right. So this is we are not doing this because we don't have a, we haven't read a book or we haven't got a bit of education. We don't have a leaflet that says girls have a period. It's 28 days long. It lasts for two to seven days. It's that's not the information that these men need. Like let's just talk generally about men, because 90 of coaches are men, so it's that like it's because they the word has never left, the word has never come out of their mouth, and I think, the more and more we are in this space, these guys, or any coaches do.
Baz Moffat:Few of them need to know where estrogen and progesterone is right, that's kind of irrelevant. What they need to be able to do is say right, I've got a two-hour swimming session. I know that 40% of my girls are going to have heavy menstrual bleeding. They're not going to last two hours and I know they're 14. Swimming is not the be-all and end for them. So if they're worried about leaking, or if they leak in this session, they're probably not going to come back. What can I do to keep them in this pool? What can I do Now? I just need to let them know. As a group, I don't need to pull anyone aside and have a really embarrassing conversation. I just need to say girls, you know what, If you need to go to the toilet at any point during this session, just you don't even need to ask, just go, and in the toilet there's products that you can use. He's not said period, he's not said bleeding, he's not said leaking.
Baz Moffat:There are words, and I do this with every topic. I kind of get people to write down all the words that they know about a certain topic and then kind of put them on a continuum to like what are you really really comfortable saying Hormone period, menopause, you know, might be a really safe word that you could use in a professional setting and not go bright red. And then there'll be words further up the spectrum which you're like there's no way I would ever say that word. I might use that with my family, I might. I'm like right, where are you comfortable? Now start having these conversations in a really comfortable space and then start moving along this continuum. And so you've got to do. You know, like I said, I've done the work on myself in lots of areas. You've got to do the work You've got to start.
Baz Moffat:Like you know, when we started the conversation around transgender, I was so nervous. I was like there is no way I'm ever going to be able to have this conversation on a panel in a conference. I keep tripping over my words and I don't. But I practiced and I practiced, and I practiced and I practiced and, yes, the conversation has moved on. So now everyone feels much more comfortable saying things, but that's exactly the same for female health. If you're not comfortable saying it in the privacy of your own home, what chance have you got with a squad of 30 girls when you've only seen them one out? You know an hour and a half every week and you've got a match at the weekend. It's that. So you, I think you've got to really understand that. It made me a bit emotional.
Sue Anstiss:You talking about the swim coach there. I think that whole not having come from a world of swimming as a young girl too, but just that whole having a system, putting a system in place that that you can show, that you hear and you understand without actually having to have the conversation that's just so powerful do you know what?
Baz Moffat:like, I think that teenagers are amazing these days. They really are, and teenage boys and teenage girls are amazing and they are. There are less sniggers and less embarrassment from them, and it's our, it's us. It's us because we were brought up in a world where this was euphemism, after euphemism was used. There's no way we talk to boys about this. Like we spent a whole life hiding tampons up our arms, like and I've done it with my own children Like I was starting to use, to use language, which I was like this is not the language I should be using.
Baz Moffat:So now we, you know, we talk about testicles, a penis and vagina and like I just started using it very comfortably. And they use it very comfortably when they're sort of nine and ten, and there's no embarrassment or shame because it's been normalized. Yeah, we are the ones that have to take that step, but you will be blown away at the maturity of these teenagers. That first session might be really embarrassing, but actually you just keep on going, keep going back into that space. And they are. The boys want to be as supportive. They want to understand what's going on with the girls, because often in many settings they are training together, like it's that kind of they want to know and I'm really, really hopeful for the future of this space. Yeah.
Sue Anstiss:I love that. I love almost a coach saying I've got a bag of period products there. Help yourself if you need to, without having to go into the depth of the detail and you see, you see so many people like they over-engineer it and they'll.
Baz Moffat:Well, I've done our session with them. I'm like right, you go away, we'll come back next week and we'll like, let's talk about, like, what you've done. And I'll come back and say, right, we've got a code word, we've got a locker and we've got a sticker on the locker. But if you go to reception, then she will then be able to. And I'm like whoa, whoa, whoa, like what is this? Why do we need all these code words? Why do we need to shut lockers? Just give them access. Just give them access. Like a lot.
Baz Moffat:Again, this is what I mean about this being fundamentals. This is not top level science, this is. It's like the girls go yeah, we're not allowed to leave our lessons. We're like okay, like, let's talk that through. And so we talked and we can understand. My goodness, these teachers have got 30 kids to teach in a class. Like. But it's like well, what if you've started leaking at the start of double physics? Are you honestly going to be able to concentrate on your physics? No, so, like, so. Some people are like well, what we've done is we've got like a little red flag and they can just put it. They just put it, but no, that's not going to work. Like they just need to put their hand up and say, please, can I go to the toilet, and we fundamentally believe that people might take the m. I think that if you show that level of maturity and trust then actually girls really respond well, but it's not easy.
Sue Anstiss:I was just going to move on, if I can do. Your fabulous book, the Female Body Bible, was published last year and, for those that don't know it or don't have a copy yet, it's now in paperback, isn't it as well, too? Different languages? Yeah, it is.
Baz Moffat:It's been published in six at a party I don't go out very often but I was at a party on Saturday night and this person came and I just love when people you must find these people come up to you and you say guess what's just happened? Like there was a perimenopausal woman and she was really struggling and the coach said to her and this was a male coach said I'm not really sure I can help you with that, but guess what? There's an amazing book. Go and read it. And it was our book. And so she said we're telling everyone in our club to read it. And so you hear these.
Baz Moffat:I really love like the personal stories that come through and I think you know especially the mums of daughters who are struggling and they kind of just use it as a resource around the house and they might just keep putting it on the coffee table or folding over the page on hormonal contraception or food is the big one. It's that kind of like trying to get the girls to have healthier relationships with food or understanding your own bodies, and so I just love those stories. Or like of a guy personal trainer, like reading in bed next to his girlfriend. It's like it's me. Did you know when was the last time you got your bra fitted and it? I love all that. I think it's amazing, oh so lovely.
Baz Moffat:So give us a one minute summary of what what's in it, for people that might be interested so it's called the female body bible and it's kind of the breadth of topics that you, you know, the stuff you'd expect, the stuff you'd not expect, it's Emma Bella and I like inputted into every single chapter. So people who love science love it, because it's all fully referenced and you can go into the back and look at where the references are. But also, if you're not bothered by that, like it's a really easy read. There's loads of case studies from sport, from participation, from our own lives.
Baz Moffat:If it gets a bit like angry at the start and the finish is to kind of, you know, this is where we're at, this is where we need to be going, and it's the kind of thing you can kind of dip in and out of, like you don't have to kind of read it all back to back. You can kind of like go oh, actually I really want to find out about this. Yeah, like it's, it's it's going down really well, and I think that it's it's not just for high performing athletes, it's for anybody that's, I would say, invested sort of time in their own health and believes that they can kind of make an impact on their health. So if you're interested in health, fitness, sport, then, and women and girls within your lives are then, um yeah, but I, I obviously think it's great I think it's great too, and they've got other plans for others in the future, more potentially watch this space soon like one, but there's another one potentially in the pipeline, but I love it.
Sue Anstiss:Yeah, love it and just finally, I guess there's obviously so much across female health that you know it feels like it's an enormous remit, doesn? I guess there's obviously so much across female health that you know it feels like it's an enormous remit, doesn't it? Because it's been so little done. So I guess, where do you feel the Well HQ can have the biggest impact moving forward? And also, what can we do as people within sport? What would you ask of us?
Baz Moffat:So the biggest impact. So I'm kind of like attempting to influence at the top and trying to like get like people to say we need to get education into our PE teachers, our personal trainers and our coaches on female health. So that's like the biggest impact that I feel we can have as an organization in terms of like what people can do, like challenge, like challenge and always ask that question, but also don't put up with something that's not good enough. Don't be grateful for something that you know is not good enough. So I think this quality assurance piece in education is so important.
Baz Moffat:So there are people out there who will be putting on girls festivals, women's festivals, which is fantastic, and I know it all comes down to money. But don't just go for the person that's going to rock up for free and says they're a local menopause expert. They might be brilliant, but how do you know? And I think we have to kind of it's now. I think we have gone beyond being delighted that female health is being talked about and we now need to say what are we telling these girls and women? And unfortunately, you've got to do your homework, really and find out the great people there are are amazing people out there. Pay them some money to turn up and do their job, because we've all got bills to pay. So do attempt to pay people to do the work, but I think that the difference and impact it can make can be huge and significant.
Sue Anstiss:It's always such a pleasure to talk to Baz or to hear her on panels at industry events. I love her passion and her wisdom around a topic that's so important for all women and girls and the people that support them too. If you'd like to hear more from other trailblazers like Baz, there are over 200 episodes of the Game Changers podcast that are free to listen to on all podcast platforms or from our website at fearlesswomencouk. Along with elite athletes, my guests have included coaches, entrepreneurs, scientists, broadcasters, journalists and CEOs All women who are changing the game in women's sport. Changing the game in women's sport. 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, inclusive community for all women working in sport. We now have over eight and a half thousand members across the world, so please do come and join us.
Sue Anstiss:The whole of my book Game, the unstoppable rise of women's sport is also free to listen to on the podcast. Every episode of series 13 is me reading a chapter of the book. Thank you once again to sport england, who support the game changers and the women's sport collective through a national lottery award, and thank you to sam walker at Goes On Media, who does such a fantastic job as our executive producer. Thank you also to my lovely colleague at Fearless Women, kate Hannan. You can find the Game Changers on all podcast platforms, so please do follow us and you won't miss out on future episodes. Do come and say hello on social media, where you'll find me on linkedin and instagram at sue and stis. The game changes. Fearless women in sport.
