Centre for Health and Development (CHAD)
The PhD will build on existing research carried out in women’s rugby to carry out an intervention, using individualised data on menstrual cycle and hormonal contraceptive use, to improve performance, training and health for rugby players.
There has been substantial growth in women’s rugby, in terms of professionalisation and popularity, which has sparked some interest in research. In a recent scoping review and Delphi consensus study, female health, in particular menstrual cycle, was deemed a future research priority by the expert stakeholders. There has been research in this area previously. For instance, the prevalence of contraceptive use, and symptoms associated with use and non-use in women’s rugby has been examined.
In interviews with elite women rugby players, symptoms associated with the menstrual cycle were perceived to negatively impact training and to be ‘endured’ or tolerated when competing. Individually tracking the menstrual cycle has been found to improve menstrual cycle knowledge and understanding, and has been used to identify hormonal-related effects on physical performance, muscle strength and adaptation, muscle injury incidence and energy metabolism. The aim of this PhD is to review what other teams (nationally and internationally) have done with their menstrual cycle tracking data to implement change. Individualised data will be gathered and mapped to determine associations with performance, training and health. A quasi-experimental intervention will be implemented, based on the data collected.