{"id":21150,"date":"2023-11-08T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-08T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/?post_type=article&p=21150"},"modified":"2025-12-15T05:11:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T05:11:07","slug":"taking-steps-towards-building-performance-strategies-for-all-athletes-in-womens-sport","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/taking-steps-towards-building-performance-strategies-for-all-athletes-in-womens-sport\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking Steps Towards Building Performance Strategies for All Athletes in Women\u2019s Sport"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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\n 8 Nov 2023 <\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>Articles<\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

Taking Steps Towards Building Performance Strategies for All Athletes in Women\u2019s Sport<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n \n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Category<\/div>\n Leadership & Culture<\/a> <\/div>\n
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The Leaders Performance Institute\u2019s Women\u2019s High Performance Sport Community Group recently discussed how all sports and organisations can emulate their market leaders.<\/p>\n \n \n \n

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By Rachel Woodland<\/h6>\n
Not a member of the Women’s High Performance Community yet? Sign up here.<\/a><\/h6>\n
What goes into the development of a performance strategy for female athletes?<\/h6>\n

Judging by the responses during the October group calls of our Women\u2019s High Performance Sport Community Group, the answers are manifold.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the experiences of the female coaches and practitioners on the calls can be clustered into three main themes: structures and teams, data, and education.<\/p>\n

Here, we delve into each in turn as discussed by the female coaches and practitioners from leagues, teams and organisations across the world who joined the October calls.<\/p>\n

Structures and teams<\/strong><\/p>\n

We are at a point in time where not only are new roles are being created, but new teams and departments are being introduced too.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve learnt that asking someone to add \u2018the women\u2019s side\u2019 to their role isn\u2019t fruitful. We also know that women\u2019s sport demands its own coordination of research and management of research questions. This means that consideration is needed in planning out the departments, positions, and staff needed. In turn, further thoughts go towards SWOTs, goals and objectives, what type of people are needed, which processes are needed. We want to help these teams set up to operate for success.<\/p>\n

Teams typically haven\u2019t had many staff in place, especially not full-time staff, but now we\u2019re able to add more people, we need to make sure people fit within our processes and visions. It should be a given that those being hired for women\u2019s sports are receptive to wanting to understand and adapt their work to best suit women.<\/p>\n

For Dr Sue Robson, the Healthy Women in High Performance Sport Programme Lead at High Performance Sport New Zealand (HPSNZ), it\u2019s been important that her new role fits around what exists already, and that when putting a programme together,\u00a0 we know the context and culture first. It takes time but find out why, and how, what exists already does, and its current value to the group. Understand your situation before making changes.<\/p>\n

Those on the calls also heard about different bedrocks to strategies and what\u2019s needed to make a programme work. For Robson, it\u2019s Environment, which impacts Knowledge, which impacts Evaluation. The process can\u2019t just be a tick-box exercise. It needs to understand reality and equip people for useful conversations. In evaluating, it is important to establish baselines and track progress so that efforts are in the right places.<\/p>\n

For Angel City FC of the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL), it\u2019s been understanding the head coach\u2019s playing style and training philosophy, alongside the GM\u2019s vision for the club. This includes deciding how performance is to be measured, and what\u2019s needed as a foundation to this.<\/p>\n

Additionally, we haven\u2019t been able to escape the need for education as a part of strategies. More on that below.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a widely shared view that there is a lot of tasks anyone could be doing at any one time. Thus prioritisation and structuring a strategy requires an outlook across multiple timelines. HPSNZ are looking to three time lines. The immediate, and minimal viable product: how can they take what they\u2019re doing now and make it better quickly? The short to mid-term, six to 12 months: which big topics would make a significant shift if changes are made? Long-term, 12 months and more: if we know more about this topic we could make a confident change. HPSNZ are exploring how to measure coach knowledge on female health as well as how to better understand tracking menstrual cycles so that they can build a self-learning environment for athletes.<\/p>\n

The group also discussed how leagues, federations, governing bodies, institutes of sport, and clubs can collaborate better, with education, knowledge sharing, or support on adding value for athletes in differing environments at different stages of performance cycles. This is even more critical when new clubs and franchises are being created, and when resources are being increased for new roles, departments and teams. Particular examples shared and encountered recently are, the NWSL\u2019s Medical Manual and UK Sport\u2019s Pregnancy Guide<\/a>, there was agreement that more could be done.<\/p>\n

Data<\/strong><\/p>\n

Which information is collected when, and how often, are important questions that shape data collection procedures within a strategy.<\/p>\n

In some environments, some current practices mean that athletes could go as long as two to four years before having an opportunity to flag a concern. The onboarding period is an important time, it will shape expectations and is a good chance to show care and precedence, as player profiles and individualised plans are built out. It\u2019s also a time where you can signal that there are topics of importance beyond the menstrual cycle.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also consideration to be given to how to time testing and research to fit with the competitive schedule, and to ensure compliance from the athletes, so that there is buy in from the majority, which will assist with the data making an impact. The basics need to be right if what we do know is to have a positive effect on the future.<\/p>\n

Positioning data as a support for players, rather than a stick is important. Moreover, those in non-medical and science roles can be key to shaping a culture of compliance. Deciding as a collective which questions are important for impacting performance over time is also critical.<\/p>\n

One extra hurdle for performance teams is around the application of research in elite environments. Current research isn\u2019t always aimed at an elite or professional level; there then becomes a need to test in these environments before confirming an approach. This leaves a desire for applied and academic worlds to meet and collaborate further.<\/p>\n

When it comes to informing strategies, a varied way of collecting data through conversations as well as surveys to let people share their lived experiences more naturally has proven successful. In general practice, conversations and trusting relationships help athletes bring up what\u2019s important to them beyond the obvious topics for women. For example, urinary incontinence is the type of medical issue that can go under-reported.<\/p>\n

Education<\/strong><\/p>\n

Education has emerged in conversations as another universal must-have for any strategy. It will shape the culture, and equip athletes to give better information, and enable athletes and staff to have better conversations. Nothing important is easy, as they say. There are questions around how best to deliver education and on what cadence so that it is effective and engaged with; enabling people to ask further questions and instigate continual education.<\/p>\n

There is acknowledgement that education at a younger age will support athletes when they enter elite and professional environments, and that using parents can be an effective tactic. There\u2019s also awareness that elite and professional organisations can support community education, perhaps in a way that traditional educational settings haven\u2019t been able to. And ultimately, how do we measure education?<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re working with athletes who share spaces across genders, it\u2019s important to give additional thought to the physical environment. Images should reflect the athletes, and not just be of men \u2013 representation matters. These little details can let girls and women know they\u2019re front of mind too.<\/p>\n

Who is your strategy for? Beyond education will it support staff as well as athletes? Ultimately, no one should suffer in silence. We want environments where athletes and staff feel equipped and safe to have useful conversations around their health, so that concerns can be raised and then acted upon.<\/p>\n

Whilst there\u2019s lots to be worked through, the overall sense we got from the conversations was excitement for the number of resources and the money being invested in high performance departments to support players, that will help the teams be more sustainable, and prevent turnover of staff. In turn, this will support people to build a culture and vision, and have people join departments knowing what to expect and how they can add value. There is a belief that people will be able to complete research over longer periods of time. There will be people in place to get clean data, decide on interventions, and to ultimately be able to be strategic with their high performance departments.<\/p>\n

Finally, there will be a growing belief that this will be possible for an increasingly wide number of women\u2019s teams and sports, following in the footsteps of some of the more mature sports and organisations.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/div>\n \n \n \n <\/div>\n

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