Understanding the pressure elite sport puts on women’s bodies is pushing athletes to new levels of excellence.

Teams of scientists are researching the unique ways that elite sport affects the female body – how breasts alter the way you run, but the right sports bra could give you the edge; how the menstrual cycle could impact performance and what role period trackers could play; and why is there a higher risk of some injuries, and what can be done to avoid them?

  • RegularJoe@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
    42·
    10 days ago

    Before you all get mad that this is about sports, there’s a lot of discussion of the science of women’s athletics, such as

    It was fitted by Prof Joanna Wakefield-Scurr, from the University of Portsmouth, who proudly goes by the nickname the Bra Professor.

    Here are her breast facts:

    *Breasts can bounce an average of 11,000 times in a football match

    *An average bounce is 8cm (3in) without appropriate support

    *They move with up to 5G of force (five times the force of gravity), comparable to the experience of a Formula 1 driver

    Laboratory experiments – using motion sensors on the chest – have revealed how a shifting mass of breast tissue alters the movement of the rest of the body, and in turn, sporting performance.