How does physiology and an imbalance of opportunity affect the athletic gender gap? It wasn’t until 1971 that the first woman ran in the Boston Marathon and the race started in 1897 (Brown, 2017), giving men the autonomy for directing the future of endurance running. But what does the science say?
There are five major factors that contribute to endurance sports and of those men tend to have an advantage with three of them (Brown, 2017). These advantages being: a larger heart, leaner muscle, and an increased VO2 max (Brown, 2017). However, central drive and movement economy (Brown, 2017) are gender unbiased and contribute to performance based on training. Think of central drive as a reaction time over time. From what I gather, it is our nervous system’s endurance: the ability to send signals to our muscles over long stretches of time. Movement economy is explained as coordination and stability of the body.
Women also have more fatigue resistant muscle fibers (Brown, 2017) and men tend to have bigger fatigue prone muscles. Men need more blood and oxygen demand, ultimately requiring more work for their hearts, causing them to fatigue faster (Brown, 2017). Remember from TBL, the major contributor to endurance related fatigue was that blood flows away from muscle to the skin to maintain thermoregulation.
But what about that dreaded progesterone!? We know from TBL that it has a catabolic effect on women's muscles during extensive exercise and prevents muscle growth during rest. Sounds terrible! Well, this might not be bad thing for endurance runners. If progesterone prevents muscle growth, then this could also contribute to a woman’s ability to fatigue slower since large muscles require greater oxygen and blood demand. It would be interesting to study what muscle fiber types are prone to catabolism during the luteal phase.
On the other hand, a study showed that women were not able to close the gap in ultramarathons (Knechtle, 2016). They did find that from the year 1975 to 2013 women were able to decrease the gap in the 6, 72, 144, and 240 hour races (Knechtle, 2016). History has not provided woman with an equal opportunity and it affects women’s athletics today. At races, I've noticed a drastic decrease in women running any distance over 50 miles. Within the ultra community some women have spoken up about “imposter syndrome”. They don’t feel like they belong. Yet, their bodies are endurance machines! It's awesome that the gender gap is decreasing because it shows that women are rewriting history through athletic dedication and personal strength. Go girl!
Main Article: www.outsideonline.com/2169856/longer-race-stronger-we-get
References
Brown, M. (2017, May). The Longer the Race, the Stronger We Get. Outside Magazine. Retrieved from https://www.outsideonline.com/2169856/longer-race-stronger-we-get
Campisi. (n.d.). Women are Not Small Men: Sex Differences in Nutrition and Exercise. TBL #2.
Knechtle, B., Valeri, F., Nikolaidis, P. T., Zingg, M. A., Rosemann, T., & Rüst, C. A. (2016, May 20). Do women reduce the gap to men in ultra-marathon running? Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4899381/.
Caroline,
ReplyDeleteAs a fellow runner myself, I have also noticed a significant decrease in the amount of women participation in ultramarathon or marathon running. Whenever I tell people my lifetime goal is to run 100 miles one day, people often don't believe me, but I will!
In a study, I found it shows that women are less fatigable than men (Deaner et al. 2015). The researchers compared pacing between men and women in different age groups. It is also showed that although men run faster than women, women are less likely to slow after the halfway point (Deaner et al. 2015). These made me believe that women are better endurance runners! It also might lead the reader to conclude that women have a more excellent distribution of slow-twitch muscle fibers, which are more resistant to fatigue. Yay!
I believe ultra-endurance races allow for women to compete at the same playing field as men. With long races, runners never work close to their maximum capacity. It is much more about peripheral conditioning, oxygen efficiency, and mental toughness (William, 2019). Your topic, in general, fascinates me, and I hope that more research is done regarding the physiology difference between men and women.
Reference:
Deaner, R., Carter, R., Joyner , M., & Hunter, S. (2015). Men Are More Likely than Women to Slow in the Marathon : Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. Retrieved 2015, from https://journals.lww.com/acsm-msse/Fulltext/2015/03000/Men_Are_More_Likely_than_Women_to_Slow_in_the.19.aspx.
Williams, S. (2019). Are women better ultra-endurance athletes than men? Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-49284389.
I have heard that women are much more equal to men as far as running goes the long the distance is. Nearly 50% of races over 100 miles are won by women. It seems that female body has some untapped potential at ultra endurance sports, because they more efficient at burning fat for fuel than men. Hopefully with more research into female specific training and nutrition, women will be able to work more effectively with their physiology.
ReplyDeleteSims, S. (2016) ROAR: How to Match Your Food and Fitness to Your Unique Female Physiology for Optimum Performance, Great Health, and a Strong, Lean Body for Life.
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ReplyDeleteTo agree with Alessandra; there needs to be more research done. But not only on the physiology but on the eagerness of contributing and successfully running a marathon. Most scientific research had a downfall, they did not have high numbers of participants. They were only able to compare and contrast different marathons. They have to set-up a study specifically to test physiological and scientific hypotheses. For example, this on the Boston Marathon stated that was a plateau for female runners and "those who overcame the barriers holding them back from Boston in the 1970s were a fairly elite and self-selecting group" (Alex, 2019). So all the data that have been comparing marathons are using a small and specific sample size.
ReplyDeleteExcusing the sample size limitation and the inconsistent comparing margin; there is substantial information that female runners in sprint races, marathons and ultra-marathons are closing the gaps against their male counterparts. Looking at data "the average difference between men and women was 10.7 percent" (Alex, 2019); and that data is in terms of speed. The big take away is that females like Jasmin Paris and Camille Herron who are running to close the gaps are amazing without the physiological studies and scientific research.
Hutchinson, Alex. “Are Women Closing in on Men at the Boston Marathon?” Outside Health Online, 3 Sept. 2019, https://www.outsideonline.com/2386436/are-women-closing-men-boston-marathon.