Sport and the female body
Inside Health
BBC
4.4 • 575 Ratings
🗓️ 22 July 2025
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As an era-defining summer of women’s sport kicks off, Inside Health looks at the science of sport and the female body.
What do we know about how female physiology affects sporting performance?
James visits Manchester to meet elite athletes and the scientists who are at the forefront of investigating the impact of periods on athletic performance and why women are more prone to certain injuries than men. He also hears about breast movement and why the right sports bra really matters.
You'll hear from: - Calli Hauger-Thackery, a distance runner who has represented Team GB in the Olympics and Commonwealth Games; - Kirsty Elliott-Sale, Professor of Female Endocrinology and Exercise Physiology at Manchester Metropolitan University; - Dr Thomas Dos'Santos, Senior Lecturer in Strength and Conditioning and Sports Biomechanics at Manchester Metropolitan University; - Joanna Wakefield-Scurr, Professor of Biomechanics and Head of the Research Group in Breast Health at the University of Portsmouth; - Katy Daley-McLean, former England rugby captain and leading England point scorer of all time, now Women's Performance Lead at Sale Sharks Women
Presenter: James Gallagher Producer Gerry Holt Editor: Glyn Tansley and Martin Smith Production coordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth
This episode is produced in partnership with The Open University. Curious to know more? Try The Open University’s ‘Menstruation Myths’ quiz by following the links to The Open University.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Greg Jenna and good news, Your Dead to Me is back for a new series. Here we go. Yes, we'll explore Emperor Nero's notorious reign with Professor Marybeard and Patton Oswald. I would not want my daughter having the remote control, not alone an empire. We'll dissect the decadent life of Philippe Duke-Dor-Leon with Tom Allen. I've often tried to pretend I'm an aristocrat and being very quickly knocked down. |
| 0:23.0 | And there'll be so much more with comedians like Olga Koch, Mike Mosniak and Rihalina. |
| 0:26.9 | I'm excited. |
| 0:27.6 | You're dead to me. |
| 0:28.5 | The comedy podcast that takes history seriously. |
| 0:30.9 | Listen first on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:34.5 | BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:38.4 | Hello there and welcome to Inside Health. |
| 0:40.9 | I'm in Manchester today because we are going to take a look in detail at the female body and elite sport. |
| 0:48.9 | Because it is a fascinating topic, lots of emerging science going on. |
| 0:53.2 | And of course, it is a summer of women's sport. |
| 0:56.3 | We've got the football Euros going on. |
| 0:58.4 | The Rugby World Cup is just around the corner. |
| 1:00.4 | Don't forget all the athletics, the tennis, the cycling, the cricket. |
| 1:04.3 | It's all going on in what's been described as an era-defining moment for women's sport. |
| 1:10.4 | But underlying that all, there's a whole load of questions |
| 1:13.3 | that are starting to be answered around. |
| 1:15.3 | The susceptibility to different injuries. |
| 1:18.7 | The impact even of just having breasts |
| 1:21.6 | and how that changes the way the body moves |
| 1:24.0 | and the importance and the science of getting sports barge right, |
| 1:27.1 | we're going to take a look at that in a bit. But first, what I want to focus on is the menstrual cycle, periods, |
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