Dr Stacy Sims has a very simple but effective message: “Women are not small men.”
But there’s the problem. The New Zealand-based exercise physiologist and nutrition scientist aims to revolutionise exercise, nutrition and performance for women and to that end has published more than 70 peer-reviewed papers.
Yet the biggest obstacle to overcome to better understand female performance physiology is that the overwhelming majority of research done to date is data collected and analysed from studying men.
While female-focused research is a drop in the ocean compared with the great depths of data that exist on male training, nutrition and recovery, Dr Sims’s findings on optimal performance for women are already making waves, not least that women – unlike men – should never exercise on an empty stomach.
In an exclusive conversation with Unfiltered editor-in-chief Joe Warner, Dr Sims also reveals how optimal post-workout recovery strategies differ dramatically between men and women, and details the essential sports nutrition supplements all women must consider adding to their diet for optimising both performance and recovery,
She also discusses one of her other great crusades to level the playing field for female health, fitness and wellness: gender stereotyping at gym inductions, where men are pointed to the weights room and women are escorted to the cardio equipment and the group exercise timetable.
It’s this gender stereotyping at gym inductions that hurts women so much by reinforcing the decades-old delusion that they belong on the step machines and cross-trainers and have no right to be in the weight room.
But as Dr Sims and her loyal legion of followers spread her message far and wide, the tide is beginning to turn.
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