Maximising Women in Sport
To maximise the women behind the performance (coaches, staff and athletes), it’s important to understand the specificities and differences that exist for women in each of the 8 constructs of well-being, in relation to sport. This allows Head Coaches and leadership to work with the differences that exist and find performance gain through doing so.
Women need to Feel Good to Perform Well
Research indicates that when women feel good, they are more likely to perform well. It is therefore a performance gain to find ways to adapt the sporting environment, programme and culture to incorporate what we know helps enable female coaches, staff and athletes to flourish.
When we break it down, there are so many differences between men and women: Women have different bodies, with different functions. Their anatomy, structure, physiology and biomechanics are all different.
Culturally, women have had, and still have a different experience to men in society - roles are different, government / state policies have been different, traditional stereotypes still exist & so does mindset and patterning. Challenging these stereotypes has impacts for the women who do. Social media ensures this.
Sport is a different place for men and women to be. Being a female athlete is often seen as something different and women’s sport is perceived differently to men’s. Funding is different, media coverage is different, provision and resource still looks different. Sporting careers for women are different with family planning, career break and return to sport.
Mentally and emotionally, society has different expectations, opinions, patterning and bias of what’s ok or ‘typical’ to see from women compared to men. Women have different hormonal shifts which changes & impacts stress tolerance & emotional load.
The above highlights some of the differences (within the constructs of wellbeing) between men and women. These differences, and the many not mentioned, suggest that women need a different approach to flourish and perform. What enables male sport is different to female sport. Sport therefore needs specificity in it’s approach and programme. When you think of marginal gains, can you afford not to?
The Work
Working collaboratively with head coaches and leadership in women’s sport to build a bespoke strategy to create a female-specific hybrid performance environment:
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This work involves conducting an analysis of the sporting programme as a whole (from a female- specific, well-being perspective) & providing feedback of the analysis to leadership.
The analysis will provide a rounded, neutral viewpoint of the current female-specific well-being areas of strength, opportunity for development & any conflict that may be in existence.
With this information, you can make informed choices around in what ways the programme can evolve best.
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Creating a female-specific performance environment can only be successful if it is driven by you - you have to believe in it, drive it and own it.
I would therefore coach you to gain understanding around the themes in the analysis, on what you perceive to be important when it comes to female well-being, flourishing and performance; where it is strong in the programme and where you see there to be opportunity to develop.
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From the analysis, and coaching, I would then design a strategy, bespoke to the organisation’s strengths and untapped opportunities.
The strategy, will be designed with the following concepts:
Systems led
The whole sport ecosystem
Female specific
Structured and measurable implementation.
Delivery of this work can also include facilitating group professional development sessions with wider coaches & staff
