The UK Sports Institute and Manchester Met join forces on female athlete health
The UK Sports Institute (formerly the English Institute of Sport) and Manchester Metropolitan University Institute of Sport have signed a visionary research partnership, which will primarily focus on female athlete health and performance.
It is widely acknowledged that more robust, high-quality research is needed to better inform the health and performance support of female athletes and this partnership will significantly enhance the UK Sports Institute (UKSI)’s leadership in this area, benefitting athletes, coaches and sports across the high performance system.
Research will focus initially on the influence of the menstrual cycle and hormonal contraception on performance, with particular attention being paid to how to apply the research so that it positively impacts athletes and coaches.
Co-Lead for Female Athlete Health at the UKSI Dr Richard Burden said: “We are all very excited about this partnership. For the science and medicine of female sport to progress there needs to be collaboration and here we are combining world-leading researchers with some of the most experienced applied science and medicine practitioners in elite female sport.
“We hope that this partnership will simultaneously provide vital research to support athletes and sports across the UK, while also raising the profile of these topics globally and keeping them high on the international agenda.”
Over the past four years, the Female Athlete Health Team at the UKSI has been involved with a number of successful projects through the SmartHER campaign, which seeks to further understand female athlete health and performance.
The award-winning female hormone monitoring technology, Hormonix, was developed with Mint Diagnostics to provide real-time female hormone data to improve training and performance. Hormonix has been used by elite athletes, including players at Manchester City Women.
The team also led a project to provide bespoke sports bras, as well as expert advice and guidance, to more than 100 athletes from 15 sports with the aim of improving both health and performance.
The team has recently completed a series of educational roadshows across the country, attended by more than 150 athletes, coaches and practitioners.
Manchester Metropolitan University Institute of Sport is championing every aspect of sport and health, from strengthening communities and building a healthier society, to inspiring the next generation of athletes and pushing the limits of human performance.
Professor Kirsty Elliott-Sale from the Institute of Sport, Manchester Metropolitan University said: “This is a special partnership, which will allow us to bridge the gap between high-quality laboratory research, which is performed under very stringent conditions, and the reality of applied sport, which is performed under highly variable conditions. In the past we have overlooked female athletes, especially elite female athletes, from sport and exercise science research; this research programme will allow us to finally conduct high-quality, fit-for-purpose research for elite female athletes.”
The Manchester Metropolitan University Institute of Sport is helping to deliver research that changes lives by advancing knowledge, delivering new treatments and addressing health inequalities.
Manchester Metropolitan researchers are already setting the international agenda for female athlete based research and practice, alongside a number of key external partners including the UKSI, the European Club Association, Arsenal Football Club, England Cricket, World Rugby, and Manchester Thunder [netball].
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