TriDot Podcast .213

Better Biomechanics for the Female Triathlete

Intro: This is the TriDot podcast. TriDot uses your training data and genetic profile, combined with predictive analytics and artificial intelligence to optimize your training, giving you better results in less time with fewer injuries. Our podcast is here to educate, inspire, and entertain. We’ll talk all things triathlon with expert coaches and special guests. Join the conversation and let’s improve together.

Elizabeth James: Welcome to the TriDot podcast. Today we are going to talk through some training and racing considerations for the female triathletes and I have two perfect guests for this conversation. First up is Dr. Andrea Myers. Dr. Andrea Myers is a doctor of physical therapy and a board certified orthopedic specialist. She provides sports performance and bike fitting services at Class Cycles in Southbury, Connecticut. Andrea is also a senior contributor at Doctors of Running. Andrea completed her undergraduate degree in molecular and cellular biology at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. She graduated from St. Ambrose University in 2006 with a doctorate in physical therapy. As a cyclist she has multiple top ten placings in UCI competitions and has numerous championship titles at the state and regional level. As a runner, she also has a blazing fast 3:04 marathon PR. Andrea, I am so excited to welcome you back to the show.

Andrea Myers: Thanks so much for having me back. It’s great to join both of you.

Elizabeth: Yeah, it’s going to be a good one. Also joining us for this conversation today is Coach Raya Usher. Raya is a British triathlon coach, an Ironman certified coach, and a certified TriDot coach assisting triathletes competing in the ITU and longer distances. Having been a former Canadian international alpine ski racer, Raya understands the intensities, pressures, and the physiological demands that are placed on athletes no matter what level they’re competing. Raya has been competing in triathlon since 2015 and has podiums at Ironman events and qualified and competed in ETU, ITU, and Ironman 70.3 World Championships. Raya, it is also a pleasure to welcome you back to the podcast. Thanks for being here today.

Raya Usher: Hey EJ. It’s so nice to finally get to sit down and talk to you because I feel like we’ve been on like 100 different phone calls with TriDot certification, with all these and to be able to sit down and talk about something really fun finally after almost a year of sitting on calls and not actually talking is really exciting. So thanks for having me.

Elizabeth: Yeah. Oh, I agree. This is going to be great. Well I am Elizabeth and I am absolutely honored to be your host for today. If our usual host, Andrew, claims that he’s the average triathlete then I’m going to claim to be your average professional. If he is the voice of the people, then today I’m going to be a voice for the women. So as always, we will roll through our warm up question, settle in for our main set conversation and then wind things down with our cooldown.

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Warm up theme: Time to warm up! Let’s get moving.

Elizabeth: Today’s warm up question is in honor of professional triathlete and my JDC training partner, Matt Hanson. Now, Matt recently announced on social media that he and his wife are expecting their first child in early 2024. So a huge congratulations to the Hanson family, such exciting news there and in his announcement he put a joke about a tricycle and then he asked for some additional dad joke material. So, Raya, Andrea, even though you know this is the women’s topic for today’s main set, I thought that maybe we could leave some room in the warm up question for the dad jokes. So I want you to give me your best swim, bike, or run related joke and Raya, let’s start with you.

Raya: Well, my husband and I always think that we’re both really, really funny, but dad jokes always land pretty bad with me. But, I saw a meme on Instagram yesterday which really tickled me so I’m hoping it will tickle everyone else and it was one of those ones where, you know, people are a little bit afraid of the swim so they’re like a shark will definitely beat me in the swim, but I feel like I could probably take a shark on the run. So really when it comes down to whether I beat a shark, it’s who is the better cyclist.

Elizabeth: I’m just imagining a shark on a bicycle too.,,

Raya: Right.

Elizabeth: …and I think that’s where some of the humor is there.

Andrea: There are so many bike fit considerations for a shark too.  

Elizabeth: There we go. Yeah. I feel like that’s going to come back around somewhere in this format. So, Andrea, what have you got for us?

Andrea: So I’m a bike fitter so I spend a lot of time in a bike shop and often we get customers, often male customers, asking us if we will provide a special receipt for them that maybe reflects a different price than what they actually paid for their bike. So here’s a good joke on that topic. A cyclist lying on his death bed asked his best friend to do him a favor when he’d gone. “Anything.” replied his friend. “Just don’t let my wife sell my bikes for what I told her I paid for them.” he begged.

Elizabeth: Yes, exactly. Probably worth you know, thousands and thousands more than what they said they paid. So, yeah. Oh my gosh. I’m in the process of looking for a new bike now and I had kind of forgotten the price tag on them. I mean they’re beautiful machines, but whew. That’s going to take a little saving. So I feel that one deeply.

Umm, alright. Here is my contribution for the Hanson family. I mean, as running being my favorite part, I really had to think of a run related one. So, did you hear about the marathon race between the lettuce and the tomato? The lettuce was “a head” and the tomato was trying really hard to “ketchup.”

Raya: Very good.

Andrea: That’s a good dad joke.

Raya: That’s a good dad joke.

Elizabeth: Groan-worthy things there. You know with Raines not being on this podcast we had to honor him. I feel like he’s always good for a dad joke or a little bit of a pun on these. So alright TriDot family. It is now your turn. Go to the I AM TriDot Facebook page, look for today’s warm up question post and let’s provide the Hanson family with some good dad joke content and then we’ll get a few laughs of our own to get this week started.

Main set theme: On to the main set. Going in 3…2…1…

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Elizabeth: I am so very excited for today’s main set conversation. This one is crafted toward the female triathlete for the women that are wanting to better understand what considerations may need to be made for our training and racing and for everyone that works with us in that journey. So coaches, spouses, training partners, etcetera. Now I do want to clarify the topic a little more as we introduce the main set here. There is a whole episode that will be dedicated to the hormonal side of training and racing and that is so super important, but that isn’t necessarily what we’re going to be talking about today. We are simply just going to run out of time to discuss both the biomechanical considerations and the hormonal considerations. So for today we’re going to be sticking much more toward the structure. So for example, as a former soccer player, I knew that injury risk for lower leg extremities was two to three times that of a male soccer player and much of this increased injury risk came from the knee abduction and the knee flexion measurements that were influenced by wider hips. So what does that look like in triathlon? Are there specific injuries that women are more prone to? What considerations need to be made for training? Is there a difference in gear selection? We are going to find all of that out.

So let’s take it in discipline order today. We’ll do swim, bike, and then run. So to start us off, Raya, it always seems like swim form is taught in a very similar way for both male and female athletes. Are there any differences that we should be looking for here? Is there anything different about the female anatomy that we should be aware of in the water?

Raya: Well I think no matter whether we’re speaking about swim, bike, or run today it’s important to say that even though our biomechanics are marginally different, we’re not saying that we’re not as strong or we’re not as supple. We just have a slightly different makeup and we want to be really mindful of that in everything we do. As coaches I think it’s also important to understand that whilst it is slightly different and there’s some considerations that we have to take into consideration, it’s not a massive difference between men and women and our ability to perform and progress. With that being said there’s a few things that I think today we’re going to really be able to highlight that we can kind of take away as women who are trying to get faster, farther, stronger. From a swimming standpoint, I always think that strength has a lot to do with how we differ in the water. So many of us women actually don’t power through the water. We’re not sitting there trying to muscle. You know, when I’m doing a swim one-to-one with a man, nine times out of ten I’m saying to him, “Okay, you’ve got massive muscles. You’ve got huge broad shoulders and all you’re doing is fighting with the water.” You’re splashing around. You’re being that shark trying to go through the water whereas actually women tend to be far more almost delicate. They look a lot more eloquent in the water and they’re not utilizing their strength as much as men are. So with men, often with my one-to-ones with swimming I’m trying to get them to harness their strength far more whereas men I’m asking them to sort of ease off. So for me specific strength training, looking at the muscles that will help sort of fix our catch or our body position in the water will really, really help. So I’m a big fan of strength training to help do that.

Elizabeth: Yeah, that’s super interesting especially what you were saying about the one-on-one lessons that you’ve done and I know for a fact that I mean, that’s kind of like my husband and me in the water too. He’s super strong. He gets in and he’s just muscling through and I get in and I’m like, “Okay, I’m more of a perfectionist and I’m going to try to put my arm here and then here.” and it’s like, just pull the water gosh darn it. Yeah, I can absolutely see that.

Raya: I think it’s also totally down to how we look at our technique as well, right? So men will go strength before form whereas I think women and the way we often learn we tend to be quite diligent and we think let’s do form before strength. So if we’re looking at technique we want to really focus on harnessing our technique, but still finding how to use power through that technique as well. It’s always– it’s great. Half the time when I’m coaching I say to the women I’m coaching, “Oh, you look fabulous in the water. You look so good. Now what we need to do is help do exactly the same thing, but apply a little bit more force. Add a little bit more umph to it and sort of find a little bit more depth into that stroke.” So yeah, it’s just about almost flipping a light switch. Flipping it on essentially.

Elizabeth: Um-hmm. Yeah. Oh, that’s super interesting. Andrea, what would you add here?

Andrea: Well I love that Raya brought up the importance of form particularly for women because I’ve been swimming almost my whole life. I started on swim team I think at age five. I had some great coaches who really, really emphasized the importance of form. I think we did form drills at just about every practice and I have found that that carried over to now. I hadn’t swam in probably 15 or 20 years and one winter I decided to take it back up again just as something to do in the off season and I found that it came back really fast. You know, I had some triathlete friends with me who were like, “Yeah, your form looks good. You look like you’ve been swimming this whole time.” So I think any movement pattern you’re learning, of course, the more you practice your form correctly, the more you’re going to lay down those neuromuscular patterns. So I think for women and for men, it’s important to get form first. You know, Raya mentioned how a lot of her male clients tend to just muscle through the water, but they don’t quite have the technique yet whereas women tend to have the opposite problem. I think it might actually be easier for an athlete, male or female, if you start out with good technique and then you get better by getting stronger. But also talking about some of the differences between male and female swimmers, the research does have some to say about this. So of course women have a higher body fat percentage, but tend to have a lower overall body mass which results in increased buoyancy which we all know that’s great. That’s why we like wearing wetsuits…

Elizabeth: Um-hmm. Yep.

Andrea: …at races when they’re allowed. A study in 1977 found that women are more energy efficient than men due to decreased drag. Interestingly there is also a greater difference in performance between men and women in short axis strokes which are breaststroke and butterfly, and less for long axis strokes which are free and back. This is because fly and breast are more energy inefficient and require greater power and anaerobic metabolism which men due to their physiological makeup tend to be better at. Additionally, when it comes to injury risk, women may be more likely to have shoulder hypermobility meaning your shoulder joint is able to move a little more than is considered normal which is a risk factor for the development of shoulder pain. But some studies have found that the level of risk is also associated with training load and shoulder strength endurance. So again, just because you’re a female doesn’t mean that you necessarily have shoulder hypermobility and if you do that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re destined to get injured. It just means that once again, strength training is of utmost importance.

Raya: And actually sometimes hypermobility can be such a blessing in swimming. If you have incredibly– Like I am incredibly hypermobile and I was not a swimmer as a child. I used to like ice; skiing down a mountain. I had never even been in a pool until I started triathlon and I did a biomechanical screening with our team physiologist when I first joined our team and the one thing he said– he did an entire body check and he was so excited. He was like “You’re so hypermobile. I can’t wait to get you in the water. This is going to be so great.” He said, “And also, you’re really strong so you’re stable with your hypermobility.” And I was like– I wasn’t a triathlon coach at the time so– “I have no idea what you mean, but I am really excited.”

Elizabeth: I do want to go back and talk just a little bit more about that increased buoyancy and this was a question that I actually got from a male athlete and he was a little embarrassed to ask, but he was like, “I don’t mean this in a crude way at all. This is just plain like curiosity.” And he said, “Women with larger chests, are they more buoyant in the water? Does that help them stay afloat? Is that going to help them with their swim form or is that a hindrance?” So I mean, in honor of him, let’s put that question out there. Andrea, women with larger chests, is this a help or is this a hurt?

Andrea: We do know that increased body fat percentage does increase buoyancy which does improve swimming performance, but I think you would have to take into account that person’s total body mass not just their chest area of course. So perhaps having a larger chest could make you a little more buoyant, but is it going to make you faster? Hard to say. But actually what I found in the research, which I thought was interesting, because even 10 or 20 years ago I don’t think any researchers were looking at the effect of breast size on athletic performance.

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Andrea: But now there are actually a number of articles about this which is important because it does affect women’s athletic performance in many aspects. I mean, we know the statistics about like middle school girls who drop out of sports around the time that they start developing and if we don’t provide young girls and women with the proper clothing and support to continue doing their sport comfortably, then we’re going to have fewer female athletes. So it is an important topic. So when it comes to swimming, what I did actually find research on is that if you have an improperly fitting swimsuit or wetsuit, it is going to hinder your performance and specifically with regard to how it fits around the chest. You don’t want to get any pockets of air there. So the most important thing is to actually be able to try on your swimsuit and your wetsuit and make sure that 1) it fits you well, but the other thing is make sure that it’s comfortable. In the running shoe world at Doctors of Running, we talk a lot about this comfort filter which is basically the best running shoe for you is more than likely going to be the one that’s most comfortable. Similarly, if your swimsuit or wetsuit is not comfortable, you’re probably not going to perform your best. So one of the studies that I found said that if your swimsuit is well fitting and comfortable it can actually improve your total body blood circulation and improve your temperature regulation which that’s really important for open water swimming in particular and longer distance swims. They also found, of course which we know, a poor fitting suit can increase pressure on the chest, buttocks, and abdomen. So the most important thing I would encourage women of any chest size is focus on the comfort and fit when it comes to choosing your swimsuit or wetsuit because that will actually improve your performance.

Elizabeth: We’ve already hit a lot on technique. Are there any other specific considerations or techniques that can help female swimmers with optimizing their stroke mechanics? I mean, we’ve talked a little about that hypermobility might be an issue. We’ve talked about the importance of technique, but is there anything else that they really need to consider as they’re looking to improve their stroke mechanics? Raya.

Raya: I think Andrea covered it really, really nicely when she started talking about the fundamentals, breaking it down. Form is such a priority and without actually looking at an individual athlete, male or female, we’re not going to know where their pinch points are or where their weaknesses are in their swim form. So one of the things, obviously we can plug away all we want with our wonderful TriDot products, but Pool School is really amazing to help break down the fundamentals. So, you know, we can really see the benefits that breaking down everything and building it back up can do even as an adult. But if you don’t have a Pool School local to you and you don’t have someone who can do a video analysis locally to you either, one of the things that TriDot does which I think is really clever and I’m finding pretty accurate with a lot of my athletes because I can see them face to face as well, is the swim form diagnostics that they can use. The swim form diagnostics is part of the metrics in TriDot that you can use which is effectively a form that you fill out and you talk about whether you are better with a swim buoy, do you swim better with a wetsuit? And I think there’s about 20 different questions and with those questions it then categorizes you as a type of swimmer. So rather than necessarily worrying about whether your biomechanics are a male or female difference, what it is doing is narrowing where your technique strengths and weaknesses are. And by doing that assessment it allows you to understand where your progression is in a curve. So are you progressing? Are you getting better? Is your form improving? But what TriDot has been able to do with that data and the diagnostic is tell you where your strengths and weaknesses are. So are you an over kicker? Are you an over glider? Are you a Tarzan in the water? What is it that you are good at and where can you improve? Then what TriDot can do is give you your drills that will help improve those weaknesses. So whilst this isn’t particularly directed at because you’re a woman this is what you should do, it’s a really great way to help identify where your strengths and weaknesses as a male or a female swimmer is and really bring your swimming up to a different standard and level.

Elizabeth: Fantastic. Well let’s go ahead and move from the swim to the bike. Now we have a great podcast episode specifically on bike fit and one of the talking points there is that bike fit is a science, but it’s also an art. So Andrea, let’s start with the science. When you are trying to get athletes in a certain position, the numbers and angles that you’re looking for, is that a little bit different when you’re fitting a female versus a male athlete?

Andrea: I don’t use a cookbook approach to fitting. So because I’m a PT, I can much more thoroughly evaluate my fit clients than say somebody who isn’t a medical practitioner. So I’m looking at everything with my clients; their mobility, their strength, their alignment, leg length, and then I do basically like a functional movement screen. I want to see how you squat and how you lunge and how you maintain a plank and what happens when you fatigue. Because how you move off the bike is going to dictate how I should set you up on the bike. The worst possible thing that you could do for a fit client is to try to make their body conform to a fit that their body isn’t ready for. Some people get this concept that like “this is the perfect fit and I’ve just got to tolerate it because eventually I’ll get used to it and I’ll be faster” and that is absolutely wrong. You wouldn’t feel that way about a running shoe. You wouldn’t feel that way about anything else, but for some reason cyclists just think it’s just normal for your crotch to hurt or it’s normal for you to get saddle sores or it’s normal for your feet to be on fire. None of those things are normal. Those are common problems, but they are not normal. It’s not a normal part of riding a bike. People are individuals. You need to find a fitter who is going to assess you as an individual and give you a position based on where you are at now with the understanding that where you’re at now is going to be different than where you’re at a year from now. And you might need an adjustment to your fit a year from now because hopefully you’re going to become a more efficient cyclist, you’re going to become stronger and more stable in the aero position, and then maybe you can tolerate a position that’s a little bit more aerodynamic. So fit is evolving just like our bodies are evolving. Our bodies respond to the stresses that we put them under. If we do all this training, we expect to be fitter as a result of it. If we spend more time riding in the aero position, we’re going to hopefully get more efficient and comfortable in it. So bike fit is a fluid thing. PT’s talk a lot about a concept called movement and impairment syndromes which is basically like a multi joint way of looking at problems. So for example if you talk about like jumping and you mentioned at the beginning of the podcast, EJ, about how soccer players are more likely to have knee injuries because of like wider hips, wider Q-angle. So a movement impairment syndrome related to that is if you watch somebody perform a squat jump and you watch them land, you might see somebody when they land their knees kind of come in and they look like everything is collapsing inward. That’s a movement impairment syndrome and once you see that particular movement pattern, you can identify what things you probably need to work on to improve that movement pattern. So I applied that concept to bike fitting because there are common movement impairment syndromes that we see with people on bikes. You think about somebody when they pedal, they’re just rocking all over the place; it’s obvious that their saddle is too high. Or if somebody, their saddle is too low and their knees are, you know, flying out to the side. There are ways to look at overall movement patterns, not just looking at well what is the knee angle, what’s the hip angle, and then be able to identify not only what you need to do with that person’s position, but what you might also need to do with regard to like strengthening or stretching. If you have had a change either positive or negative in how you move, then it is probably worth getting your fit looked at again.

Elizabeth: Now Andrea, have you done fits for females like during their pregnancy that wanted to continue riding and said like, “Obviously I’m not comfortable in the TT position here any more.” Have you been able to kind of work with somebody or walk them through maybe some adjustments to keep them active, but not in such an aggressive position?

Andrea: Yeah. I have a couple women over the years and I mean, yeah, it’s all about comfort right? Like, we know that it’s okay to keep exercising when you’re pregnant. It’s okay to keep riding a bike when you’re pregnant, but you want to make sure that you’re comfortable while you’re doing it. So often that means a person’s handlebars are going to need to come up a little bit or a lot as the nine months comes on.

Elizabeth: Yep

Andrea: And that’s pretty easy to do as long as you have a bike that uses regular stems of course. Now with most medium-to-high end bikes having integrated bars and stems, it becomes a little more difficult. But yeah and I would really encourage women who are pregnant to continue with the training that their doing as long as their doctor has cleared them to do so and if you need help getting your position dialed in to make you more comfortable, in that situation I would recommend, very highly recommend seeking out a medical fitter because they’ll just have a much better understanding of what needs to be done. But yeah, keep doing what you love doing as long as you can.

Elizabeth: Raya, what have your experiences been with bike fit and maybe ones that you’ve done or other athletes that you’ve worked with and their fit experiences?

Raya: Well, I absolutely love Andrea’s response because it just hits every single nail on the head. For me, bike fitting is science meets art form and you can’t have one without the other. Very similar to Andrea does we have a very, very good bike fitter and we also have a sports physiotherapist that we work with and they co-fit our athletes. Exactly the same. It’s really important to remember it’s not just about injury. If you’re in the sport for years and years and years, do you know what the other thing that happens to us? It’s that we get older and whilst none of us ever what to admit that, you are right. It doesn’t matter if you’re a pro, it doesn’t matter if you’re a complete amateur, five years down the line our bodies change. I looked at my last bike fit on my TT bike. I did Ironman Barcelona was my last full Ironman and I look at what my fit was for my very first Ironman when I was a bit more competitive and it was so much more aggressive and that’s because even though I’m really good with my yoga and my pilates and my mobility and my strength work, I am not as flexible as I was seven years ago. It isn’t. We’re not. So I think it’s really good to just keep on top of it, especially if anything changes. So if your cleats need a change and you’ve changed them, make sure that you have completely marked exactly where those cleats were supposed to go because that is the number one problem when I get an athlete who says “Oh, my knees are really sore today.” And you go, “Okay, well let’s take a step back. What’s been happening recently?” And nine times out of ten they’ll go, “Well, I think it’s maybe from the bike.” Okay what have you done on your bike recently? What’s changed? “Oh, well I changed my cleats.” Okay had you marked where your cleats were from the last time you had your bike fit? “No.” Okay, so we assume that that’s probably going to be it. So just remember, it’s micro changes. Andrea said 3 mm can make such a difference to your whole body and its positioning. So yeah. I think it’s absolutely brilliant. I think we’ll probably come onto this, but the one thing I think is really important to talk about is probably your touch points. In particular with us females, not all of us have wider hips, but scientifically we tend to have wider hips. So for me it’s really important to get your sit bones measured understanding that. So I think we’ll probably come onto that, but that is for me the crux of a really, really good sort of piece de resistance of a bike fit is making sure those touch points are like spot on.

Elizabeth: Yeah. Yeah, well let’s dive into that a little more specifically with those saddles. I mean there’s a lot of hype right now about female specific saddles and being able to buy this saddle because then you can adjust it to where your sit bones are. Andrea maybe you can maybe dispel some myths here for us. Like, what is the hype about with all these female-specific bike components that are out there?

Andrea: Alright, this is a favorite topic of mine including sit bone width, sit bone measurement, and how companies label the width of their saddles. So I’m going to talk about that first. So first of all when you buy a saddle and it says how wide it is, it is referring to the widest part of the saddle. That is not where your sit bones go. So, just because your favorite current saddle is a 142 mm width saddle does not mean that if you want to try a different saddle you are going to fit well on the same width. Because the shape of the saddle, the way it tapers from the widest part to the middle part where your sit bones actually go, that width is going to be different. I would really love for bike and saddle manufacturers to actually label the width of the saddle where they think your sit bones are supposed to go because that would be a lot more helpful for both athletes and fitters in choosing the right saddle for a given person. Now the other thing that I will say about saddle width and sit bone width measurement is that the type of bike you’re riding and the type of position you have are going to affect the width of the saddle that you need. So I have this antidote that really illustrates how just relying on saddle width is not enough to help somebody find the right saddle for a given bike. So I had a fit client, strong age group Ironman athlete. He had used the Pro Stealth on his tri bike for years and he got a new road bike, he wanted to put the same saddle on there. You know, the Stealth, once people use it as a road saddle it’s actually marketed as a road saddle. I said, “Sure, we can put that on.” So we ordered the same width Stealth that he uses on his tri bike. Well, that saddle ended up being too narrow for him in a road position because of course when you’re in the tri position you’re pelvis rotates further forward so the part of your pelvis that’s actually coming into contact with the saddle is more anterior than when you’re on a road bike even if you have a pretty aggressive position on your road bike. So he actually needed, for his road bike, the Stealth saddle in the next width up and once we– fortunately I had one of those in the shop and once I put that on, it was perfect. But with the narrower one, he was rocking all over the place. His knees were all over the place. So just to drive the point home, if you use one width on your tri bike, you might need a wider saddle on your road bike or if you use one width on your tri bike, but use a different saddle on your road bike, you might use the same width one because where your sit bones go on those two saddles might actually be similar. So in the end, you’ve got to try saddles out to figure out what works best for you. I do think that there is value in measuring sit bone width as a starting point, but in the end the only way to know what saddle is the right width for someone is to have them try them. Because this happens to me all the time. I’ll have either a new rider or just somebody that wants to try different saddles and I’ll put three or four different saddles on their bike that are all the same width and two of them are clearly too narrow. Their sit bones aren’t supported by the saddle and you can see them rocking, and the other two might be the right width or one of them because of the shape, the way it tapers from back to front might functionally be too wide because it’s getting in the way from basically dead bottom center to the upstroke. So you’ve got to try a saddle out. You just can’t rely on measuring your sit bones and say “Oh, this is going to be the right width for me.” Female specific saddles, there should be female and male specific saddles because of course our anatomy is very different. But in practice, plenty of women use saddles that were designed for men and plenty of men are using saddles that were designed for women. One of the best examples of that is the Specialized Mimic line which I am a big fan of those saddles. They work for a lot of people, but the Mimic line was designed for women. But so many Specialized employees who are male started using that saddle and actually there’s a number of male pro riders who also use that saddle. So now Specialized does not call their Mimic saddles women’s saddles. They are labeled unisex saddles. So again, when they came out with that saddle, they claimed that they had all of this research that, you know, it’s designed for women, designed for women’s anatomy, which it works for women, but guess what? It also works for men. So in the end I think it does come down to finding not only the right width, but the right shape. So when I’m helping somebody choose a saddle I’m not just looking at width and length. I also look at well what is the shape as it tapers from rear to front? Some people do really well with a saddle that has a more gradual taper and some people do better with a saddle that tapers pretty quickly. The other thing that’s really important for women, I mean for everybody but we’re talking about women, is the width of the nose of the saddle, the front of the saddle especially in the tri position because you do have more pressure on those anterior tissues. If the saddle nose is too narrow you end up with a ton of pressure on your labia which is not good. You can end up with swelling. You can end up with saddle sores. So the nose actually needs to be sufficiently wide enough to support that part of your anatomy. Some people do better with a completely split nose like the Adamo saddles. Some people do better with a solid nose. Some people prefer a full cutout. Some people like a channel. The only way to know is to try them. At Class Cycles where I do bike fits we probably have 20 demo saddles that people just put a deposit down and they can go ride it for two or three weeks and figure out if they like it. During a fit, the feedback somebody gives me about a particular saddle– what they like and don’t like– kind of helps me to categorize okay, they like the nose width of the saddle, but the taper is wrong. Or this is the right width saddle, but the amount of hammock, the amount of swoop from front to back isn’t right. In my mind I kind of categorize saddles that way so that it’s kind of like interviewing somebody. They tell me what they do and don’t like about particular saddles and it kind of helps me funnel down and figure out what might work best for them. So you know, there are all of these companies that claim, “Oh just do what, you know touch your toes, sit on this saddle measurement pillow that measures your sit bone width and we’ll tell you what saddle is right for you.” And if you end up with the right saddle for you based on you, well congratulations.

Elizabeth: Lucky you.

Andrea: But often it takes a little more work than that. So if you’re struggling with saddle choice, my best recommendation is find a shop that has a really good selection of demo saddles and has a good fitter so that they can help you as an individual figure out the right saddle for you.

Elizabeth: One of the other questions that I had here is a lot of people will also talk about female specific bike frames versus a unisex frame. In your experience, Andrea, have you found there to be a big difference? Is there a specific recommendation that you would give to women as they’re looking to purchase a new bike?

Andrea: Yeah definitely. You know, 10 or 15 years ago I would say almost every brand had female-specific frames meaning they made a different bike with female-specific geometry and the assumptions that those companies were making was basically that women have a shorter torso and longer legs on average compared to men. Really that’s not true. There are plenty of men that have proportions like that. So I would say in the last, oh, five years or so we’ve seen almost every bike company do away with female-specific geometry which I think is a good thing. So now you have just one frame geometry, but the companies that are still marketing a female-specific bike that usually refers to female specific touch points which are narrower handlebars for a given bike size. Usually the handlebars also have what’s called a shorter reach. So like where your brake hoods attach, the length there is called the reach and the length can vary depending on the bar you buy from 65 mm to over 90 mm. So if you have small hands and you get a bike that has even an 80 mm reach it can actually be quite uncomfortable because you’ve got all of this bar sticking out behind your hands and what I’m talking about right now is specific to road bikes. So I like the female bikes now come with bars that are more likely to fit the women who are buying them. The other thing that tends to come on these bikes are female-specific saddles which the saddle might work for you, it might not, but if it’s a nice saddle, like if your bike comes with a Specialized Mimic saddle, those saddles work well for a lot of people and if it doesn’t work well for you, you can probably put it on Ebay and someone else will buy it. So sometimes on female-specific bikes you might see shorter cranks on like the smaller sizes and crank length, we could have a whole episode on that so I won’t go down that path. In general what companies are doing now with female-specific bikes, I like. I also like that more companies are making smaller bikes so maybe for people who are under 5 feet tall because female triathletes who are on the shorter side really have a tough time finding bikes that fit them. But in the past few years, we’ve seen more companies recognizing that. Some of the bikes even come with smaller wheels which is great because it allows the frame geometry to really accommodate a smaller person. So I like in general what the industry is doing with female specific frames.

Elizabeth: Raya, is there anything else that you would add onto the bike stuff before we move disciplines here?

Raya: Nine times out of ten if you buy a female-specific bike or a non female-specific bike you’re going to get what we call a stock saddle or a stock handlebar or a stock wheel and generally speaking, depending on your budget, you’re probably going to change those anyway. So don’t necessarily stress about the fact that something is being marketed as a women-specific product because actually when you go get your bike fit, your brand new, spiffy, shiny, new bike will probably have handlebars that might be too wide for you, the saddle won’t suit you, and you might want to get some flashier carbon wheels which often don’t come with a stock bike. So at the end of the day, don’t stress. It doesn’t have to be a liv because it’s a female-specific bike frame. You could very well get a smaller size Cervelo because they don’t have female-specific frames and be just as happy.

Andrea: Bike technology has gotten better and better over the years, but one thing that we are seeing in all bikes, particularly triathlon bikes, is more integrated front ends. So you don’t have a normal stem on there. Often the stem has like the hydraulic lines routed through it. The stem might not even be like a normal stem, it’s like a piece that’s built into the bike. Same thing with the handlebars. So it makes having your position dialed in before you buy a bike very important. Because let’s say right now you’re riding a size small Shiv and you decide that you want to get a size small SpeedMax. Well, you need to know more than just the size of your frame. What you need to know are the coordinates of where your arm pads are located because that will dictate the size, the length integrated stem you use and any risers that go under the stem and the specific positioning of your pads because the way that you’ll get the pads in the right place for you is actually pretty complicated and it’s easier for the bike shop to do that when they’re building the bike rather than undoing it during a fit. So if you are getting a new tri bike and the bike you are interested in has an integrated front end, you absolutely need to have your fit before you buy the bike. Then all of these brands have calculators where you can plug in these pad coordinates and your saddle height and it will tell you what size frame you need, but it also says all of the little parts that go on the front end so that the shop can build it the right way initially which saves you money and headache and time.

Elizabeth: So much to think about for the bike, but we are going to move things right along and go out on the run. Now there’s a lot of literature talking about ideal metrics for stride length, cadence, foot strike, and on and on and on and on more and more. Now, is there anything specific to the female athlete in regard to these metrics? Are we shooting for the same as our male counterparts? Raya, let’s go with you. Let’s have you weigh in first here.

Raya: So one of the things that we have always found to be one of the most important things to teach our athletes is cadence, cadence, cadence. And one of the things that us as women kind of have a benefit of is we do tend to be a little bit more mobile and have better flexibility. So if we can really hit the right cadence which our sweet spot is 175 and over, some of the pros hit far faster than that, much higher cadence, what we’re going to be doing is reducing the risk of injury and hopefully helping us improve our form. So irrespective of whether us as women have smaller muscle mass, have slightly slender frames, I think that’s one of the most important things that we should focus on. Fix cadence first, reduce risk of injury, and then hopefully the rest will follow.

Elizabeth: Andrea, weigh in for us here.

Andrea: Yeah that’s great Raya and I would agree that often if somebody is having pain running, improving their cadence can be the solution. It’s not always and it’s hard to– there’s no way to look at an individual runner and say “Your ideal cadence is 178.” We know a general range, but it also depends on what speed we’re talking about because our cadence is going to be lower when we’re doing an easy run versus when we’re doing like a tempo run or we’re racing a 5K. So the best way to know if increasing your cadence is the right intervention for you is actually to go to a running physical therapist so they can do a running gait evaluation. Because increasing your cadence might be part of it, but it’s rarely the only thing. Like Raya said, there’s often a mobility component, there’s often a strength component. It could also be the shoes that you’re using or not. Like the ideal choice for you based on your biomechanical considerations. So while increasing cadence is often a good intervention, I wouldn’t use it as the only one. Now getting back to differences between male and female runners, a systematic review and meta analysis– so that means it looked at all of the studies that are out there on this topic, this was done in 2022– found no difference in stride length, cadence, or foot strike between men and women. So just in general, looking at runners, we don’t see any significant differences there. It did find that female runners demonstrate different movement patterns specifically, they have more hip flexion, more hip adduction meaning the knee coming in toward the midline, and hip internal rotation which is the knee cap rotating in towards midline, really the femur rotating in towards midline. But if you think about who when they land it looks like their knee cap is pointing in, that’s what hip internal rotation is. They also found that female runners have a smaller knee flexion angle when their foot hits the ground than male runners and they stated that these findings may partially explain why women are actually two times more likely to experience patellofemoral pain than male runners. So yes, women demonstrate different biomechanics than men, but not every woman and there are certainly men who demonstrate these movement impairments that were described as being more common in women. But on average, you do see these movement differences in women. One other thing I wanted to talk about is heel striking and pronation because to some people I just said two four letter words. The vast majority of runners, including many elite athletes, are heel strikers and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. It’s completely normal. So if you are a heel striker and you have no pain, there is absolutely no reason to feel like you need to train yourself to land further forward on your foot. The other thing is, there is nothing wrong with pronation. Pronation is good. It helps us accept the load as our foot rolls onto the ground. If you under-pronate, you’re more likely to get certain injuries. If you pronate too much or if you pronate too quickly as you go from initial contact to push off, yes you may be more likely to get certain injuries and yes maybe using a shoe that helps control the speed of that pronation moment would be beneficial, but pronation isn’t bad.

Raya: If you just have them look at any Olympic final or even world championship qualifiers at track and watch the qualifiers and the finals of all the elite runners, you will find that 80% of those elite runners are still heel striking or midfoot striking. There’s a huge, huge proportion of the global running population that are heel strikers and those heel strikers are elite runners.

Elizabeth: I do want to talk a little bit about, you know, while we run I have heard and I’ve even kind of witnessed this myself that females tend to swing at the hips more than males and especially when they’re fatigued. It was interesting, I was at a race with another coach and I mean he is just a guru on run form and we were at the end of the marathon after the swim, after the bike and here’s all these triathletes and he’s like, “Yeah, look at that hunched over and bad hip swing.” and it’s amazing how some of these things really come out when we’re fatigued. So Andrea, have you seen kind of some of these differences male/female with a fatigued runner or is it more like just movement patterns in general and what shows up when an athlete gets tired regardless of male or female?

Andrea: Well, I think it would be interesting to differentiate from how a fatigued Ironman athlete looks at the end of the marathon and how just a fatigued marathon runner looks.

Elizabeth: That’s true.

Andrea: Because of course coming off of a 112 mile bike, the body has been under a different load than, you know, starting fresh at mile 0 of a marathon. That’s actually a topic that greatly interests me. I would love to, you know, talk to somebody who is involved in researching that because running off the bike is different than just running and of course there’s some things we can do with bike positioning. But, you know, I remember watching Kona last year and I can’t remember how many of the top women were wearing Asics Metaspeed either Sky or Edge and several of the top men too. I started thinking is there something about running off the bike that would change the type of shoe that a top athlete would use where as if that person was just run– You know, the woman who won last year–

Elizabeth: Chelsea Sodaro.

Andrea: If she was just running a straight marathon, would she have chosen the shoes that she wore in Kona or would she have chosen something else because the stress on her body is completely different just running a stand alone marathon? So setting that aside, as far as how women fatigue versus men, certainly female runners and females in general are more likely to have weakness in their hip abductor muscles, so their gluteus medius is the main muscle there and women can definitely benefit from focusing on strengthening both their glute med and their glute max to improve their running performance, cycling performance, even swimming performance. So, weakness in the hip abductors would show itself as a fatigue pattern in somebody who is kind of like with every step kind of leaning side to side which I think is what you were talking about when you said that people tend to swing at the hips more. So the medical term for that is a trendelenburg pattern where you land on your right foot and you kind of lean to the right side because that’s a compensation for weakness in your gluteus medius. I would guess that that probably is more common in women although I’m not aware of any specific research about that. But without question, female runners can absolutely benefit from focusing on glute med and glute max strengthening.

Elizabeth: Raya, what would you add here.

Raya: Everything that Andrea said is exactly spot on as per usual, but what I think is also something really interesting to note in terms of fatiguing and endurance athletes, a lot of studies show that as we age as women, our ability to endure endurance actually starts to surpass men at a certain point. So it’s probably a good link here to say that actually one of the benefits is you will probably more often than not see the men at the end of those Ironmans hunching over and having that sort of lean far more than women do because actually our bodies are able to sustain that level of endurance for a longer, greater time. I can’t remember exactly at what age that sort of bevel tilts, but we end up becoming actually stronger and it’s really demonstrated very well in ultra marathon runners. Women become incredibly good, almost as fast as the men, at a certain point. So actually whilst it’s very, very important for us women to continue our strength training to complement that, actually there comes a point where our endurance becomes one of our main strengths too.

Elizabeth: Yes. Yeah and I mean we’ve seen that in the ultra running community. Even this year where the women are outright beating the men in these 100 mile, 250 mile races.

Andrea: Yeah and we’ve seen that in ultra distance cycling events too. A woman won a very long distance cycling event earlier this year and also in really long open water swimming events because 1) women have that buoyancy advantage. We also have a thermal regulation advantage. So as the event gets longer, we definitely start to have a greater and greater advantage of even potentially beating the top man.

Elizabeth: Another one I really want to hit on here today is pelvic floor health or pelvic floor PT. Andrea, can you speak a little bit about that for us?

Andrea: Pelvic floor training is very important for all women, not just for women who have had children. For women who have had children, the likelihood that you have some dysfunction in your pelvic floor muscles is high and it’s not just about weakness. It can also be about not being about not being able to fully relax those muscles and those problems can cause urinary incontinence, fecal incontinence, can actually cause organ prolapse. It’s a serious thing and physical therapy with somebody who specializes in the pelvic floor can absolutely help with those symptoms. At Doctors of Running I had a pelvic floor PT specialist on as a guest last year with Dr. Beth Shelly and she was talking specifically about the prevalence of urinary incontinence in runners. It’s actually quite common not only in women who have had kids, but in women who have never had kids and just because it’s common doesn’t mean it’s normal. Of course, there are exercises you can do to help reduce that happening, but if you are experiencing issues like incontinence while you’re running or incontinence just with daily activities I would highly encourage you to see a physical therapist who specializes in the pelvic floor. You definitely need to see a specialist. If it’s a problem you’re having, find a pelvic floor PT in your area and give them a call. Like, why wait longer to address something that could potentially be limiting your quality of life.

Elizabeth: Wow. I feel like we are just scratching the surface in terms of some of these women’s issues, but we are already up on our time. So I’m just going to kind of close us down with one more question. I want to go to each of you and just see what other words of advice you would have for women and it can be discipline specific, it can be just in general. I mean, we’ve already gone through a little bit swim, bike, run, touched on some strength. But I mean, there’s a lot of women out there that are getting more and more involved in sport and it’s super exciting to see. So Raya, let’s start with you. To wrap us up, what would you say to the women out there that are listening today?

Raya: For me, accessibility to sport and not being nervous to start is so important. So many sports are, I think can feel, from an outsider very intimidating and it’s not just triathlon. It’s sport in general. If you’re looking to get out there, really just try anything and don’t be afraid because we all started somewhere, right? I mean, I was in my 30s when I started triathlon and needed a new challenge and I knew nobody and didn’t know anything about the sport. I was complete novice, had no idea what I was doing, but there are so many resources and so many people out there to support you. So my biggest sort of piece of advice is be confident and listen to your body. So don’t over do it, don’t go hell bent for leather right out the gate. Just take it easy and ease in and really enjoy the process.

Elizabeth: Awesome. Yes. Augh. Such good advice. Andrea, how about you? Close us out.

Andrea: I would say the best advice I could give to any female athlete is to make sure that you are properly fueling your training. There are so many forces in the world that encourage us to not do that and to be the best athlete you can be, you’ve got to eat and you’ve got to eat the right stuff.

Cool down theme: Great set everyone! Let’s cool down.

Vanessa Ronksley: It’s cooldown time and I’m Vanessa, your average triathlete with elite level enthusiasm. For our coach cooldown tip today I am super excited to be here with Suzette Schutze. Suzette is a professional artist and works mainly with painting and sculpting. She's also one of those people who watched Kona coverage back in the ‘90s, decided that she was going to be a triathlete, and started training the very next day. A few months later she was sitting on the podium after her very first race and has continued to do so in sprints, Olympics, and 70.3’s. Suzette is also no stranger to the full distance tri and has a soft spot for Ironman Coeur d’Alene. As a coach, Suzette loves working with athletes of all levels and her main philosophy is communicating with her athletes as if they are her family members. One of her greatest joys is witnessing the success of her athletes because of their hard work and tenacity. Suzette currently lives in Pearland, Texas with her husband of 31 years. She is also a very proud mother of two grown sons. Welcome to the cool down Suzette.

Suzette Schutze: Thank you so much Vanessa. It’s great to be here.

Vanessa: No I’ve heard that you had an interesting race experience where you discovered that there was a small creature that had hitch hiked during your race. So it sounds like a really good story.

Suzette: Yeah. Umm so I did my very first race, first sprint triathlon. I’m all fired up. I’m ready to go. I go do the race. You know, and back in the day you didn’t have fancy tri suits or anything like that so you just wore a bathing suit to do your event. So I had a one piece bathing suit on. I go do the race. I get finished. I go home and it’s like three or four hours later and I go to change my clothes and a little minnow about ¾ inches long was just glued to my stomach and it was stuck on me and it was the grossest thing ever. So yeah. He hitched a ride in the water and did the whole race with me and made it all the way back to my house until I got in the shower. So, yeah.

Vanessa: Oh my gosh! How did it get in there?

Suzette: I don’t know, but that’s also when we didn’t– there were no age group starts or anything like that. It was just mass starts.

Vanessa: Right. Yeah.

Suzette: So the waters were crazy. I don’t know if there were– I don’t know if anybody else experienced the same thing I did that day, but I made it home with a minnow.

Vanessa: I’m guessing that was a once in a lifetime experience.

Suzette: That’s never happened again which is a good thing. But it was gross. It definitely– it’s dried.

Vanessa: That’s a really excellent story especially because it was your first triathlon.

Suzette: Thank you.

Vanessa: I love it so much. So what tip do you have for us today?

Suzette: I would say for most all of us that do triathlons, or whatever it is you do in life, don’t give up on yourself. Show up every day. Be the best version of yourself you can be every day. We’re all going to have doubts throughout our lives. We’re all going to be tired. We’re going to not want to do things sometimes and if you just keep showing up and just keep putting one foot in front of the other and just don’t give up on yourself you will succeed in whatever it is you are trying to do.

Vanessa: I think that is a super important aspect for, like you said, any part of your life. I used to be a teacher in my former days and I would say to my students something very similar that you need to give 100% of whatever you have on that specific day and 100% today might be different than your 100% tomorrow. But as long as you give 100% of whatever you have, things are going to work out in your favor.

Suzette: I’m a firm believer of that as well. And I try to do something kind for someone every day as well.

Vanessa: Oh nice.

Suzette: Pay it forward.

Vanessa: Even if that might just be like passing on a smile while you’re passing someone on the street or whatever.

Suzette: You bet.

Vanessa: Do you have any little anecdotes from any of your athletes that might lend itself to this tip that you may have shared with them?

Suzette: You know it’s interesting because the ones I’ve been working with lately are such new beginners. They’re just finding themselves and so I try to give them little mantras, you know, something that they can hold onto while they’re doing their races or what have you. Like yesterday I had a kiddo do a sprint and he was worried because he was so nervous. I’m like, it’s the little things, right? Just practice your breathing. Do your four breaths in, hold at the top four, down four, hold at the bottom four. Those little bitty things you can find and put in your toolbox will help you throughout your day and throughout whatever it is you’re trying to accomplish.

Vanessa: Hmm. I think that’s a really important thing to remember. A part of the giving up process is thinking that you have zero control and that you can’t carry on with where you currently are and I think if we focus to something as small as the box breathing like you had suggested, it kind of brings you back to the present and it erases what’s happening in the future.

Suzette: Yeah.

Vanessa: And a lot of times when people do give up it’s because they’re thinking of everything that has yet to come. But if you can just bring yourself to the present moment and think, “What do I have to do right now in this moment to get through this portion of difficulty that I’m experiencing?” then yeah, it brings you to that space where you don’t have to necessarily give up if you can just refocus.

Suzette: Yeah, and I tell them when they do their races too, don’t look at it as a whole. Look at it–

Vanessa: Right.

Suzette: Even though it is a whole, just take it one step at a time. It will work itself out.

Outro: Thanks for joining us. Make sure to subscribe and share the TriDot podcast with your triathlon crew. For more great tri content and community, connect with us on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Ready to optimize your training? Head to tridot.com and start your free trial today! TriDot – the obvious and automatic choice for triathlon training.

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