Effects of Female Reproductive Hormones on Sports Performance
Women of reproductive age experience regular physical changes in their bodies due to hormonal alterations during the course of their ovulatory menstrual cycles, as well as during pregnancy and with the administration of oral contraceptive pills. The varia
- PDF / 852,233 Bytes
- 42 Pages / 504 x 720 pts Page_size
- 39 Downloads / 193 Views
Effects of Female Reproductive Hormones on Sports Performance Constance M. Lebrun, MDCM, Sarah M. Joyce, BEXSC, and Naama W. Constantini, MD CONTENTS Introduction Physiology of the Menstrual Cycle Oral Contraceptives Physiological Effects of the Female Sex Steroid Hormones Female Reproductive Hormones and Athletic Performance Female Reproductive Hormones and Sports Injuries Summary References
INTRODUCTION Over the past 30 years, the involvement of women and girls in physical activities and competitive sport has increased exponentially. This is largely a consequence of Title IX of the United States Educational Assistance Act (enacted in 1972), which mandated institutions receiving federal monies to provide equal access for women to funding for extracurricular activities, including opportunities for participation, financial resources for scholarships, and qualified coaching. Equally as important, there have been progressive changes in societal and cultural views worldwide toward the acceptance of female athletes into the sporting arena—historically and traditionally a male bastion. Women
From: Endocrinology of Physical Activity and Sport: Second Edition Edited by: N. Constantini and A.C. Hackney, DOI 10.1007/978-1-62703-314-5_16 © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013 281
282
Lebrun, Joyce, and Constantini
now compete at the highest levels in most sports, some of which were previously played by men only, such as ice hockey, wrestling, and rugby. The 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London marked the introduction of women’s boxing as a full-participation sport. Yet scientific knowledge regarding a woman’s unique physiology—from childhood through puberty and adolescence, across the reproductive lifespan, and into the postmenopausal years—has not kept pace with this explosion in sport participation by girls and women. In particular, there still remains a multitude of unanswered questions about the effects of the female reproductive hormones—estrogen and progesterone—on various aspects of athletic performance. Athletic performance itself is a multifaceted entity—a complex and intricate kaleidoscope of cardiovascular, respiratory, metabolic, endocrinological, and psychological factors that all must interact to enhance and facilitate sporting success. The relative importance of each varies with the specific demands of the particular discipline. Athletes and coaches have long postulated that altered athletic performance might result from the hormonal swings of the female menstrual cycle (MC). Early studies were retrospective and nonspecific, with substantial recall bias in terms of MC phase and status (1–3). Researchers have investigated the influence of the MC on substrate metabolism, cardiorespiratory function, thermoregulation, psychological factors, and musculoskeletal injury rates. The individual sex steroids estrogen and progesterone can have antagonistic, synergistic, or additive effects, and furthermore, their relative concentrations change during the course of an ovulatory menstrual cycle (4, 5). In addit
Data Loading...
