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Up to Speed: The Groundbreaking Science of Women Athletes
“ Up to Speed is a roadmap and toolbox for athletes of all ages. Every coach should read it and discuss it with their athletes. I wish I had been able to read this book while I was competing.” —Kara Goucher, Olympic long-distance runner and author of The Longest Race
How the latest science can help women achieve their athletic potential
Over the last fifty years, women have made extraordinary advances in athletics. More women than ever are playing sports and staying active longer. Whether they’re elite athletes looking for an edge or enthusiastic amateurs, women deserve a culture of sports that helps them training programs and equipment designed to work with their bodies, as well as guidelines for nutrition and injury prevention that are based in science and tailored to their lived experience.
Yet too often the guidance women receive is based on research that fails to consider their experiences or their bodies. So much of what we take as gospel about exercise and sports science is based solely on studies of men.
The good news is, this is finally changing. Researchers are creating more inclusive studies to close the gender data gap. They’re examining the ways women can boost athletic performance, reduce injury, and stay healthy.
Sports and health journalist Christine Yu disentangles myth and gender bias from real science, making the case for new approaches that can help women athletes excel at every stage of life, from adolescence to adulthood, through pregnancy, menopause, and beyond. She explains the latest research and celebrates the researchers, athletes, and advocates pushing back against the status quo and proposing better solutions to improve the active and athletic lives of women and girls.
How the latest science can help women achieve their athletic potential
Over the last fifty years, women have made extraordinary advances in athletics. More women than ever are playing sports and staying active longer. Whether they’re elite athletes looking for an edge or enthusiastic amateurs, women deserve a culture of sports that helps them training programs and equipment designed to work with their bodies, as well as guidelines for nutrition and injury prevention that are based in science and tailored to their lived experience.
Yet too often the guidance women receive is based on research that fails to consider their experiences or their bodies. So much of what we take as gospel about exercise and sports science is based solely on studies of men.
The good news is, this is finally changing. Researchers are creating more inclusive studies to close the gender data gap. They’re examining the ways women can boost athletic performance, reduce injury, and stay healthy.
Sports and health journalist Christine Yu disentangles myth and gender bias from real science, making the case for new approaches that can help women athletes excel at every stage of life, from adolescence to adulthood, through pregnancy, menopause, and beyond. She explains the latest research and celebrates the researchers, athletes, and advocates pushing back against the status quo and proposing better solutions to improve the active and athletic lives of women and girls.
336 pages, Hardcover
Published May 16, 2023
About the author
Christine Yu
1 book17 followersChristine Yu is an award-winning journalist whose work focuses on the intersection of sports science and women athletes. Her writing has appeared in Outside, The Washington Post, Runner’s World, and other publications. She’s a lifelong athlete and yoga teacher who loves running, surfing, and skiing. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 119 reviews
January 7, 2024
Up to Speed is an illuminating work of nonfiction about how understudied women are within sports science and what is lost as a result of that ignorance.
It's becoming more well-known (partially because of books like Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men) that a lot of the base science about the human body - agreed upon figures that are deemed to represent the "average" human - were gathered from men. It's also becoming more clear to us that men and women's bodies are extremely different. Expecting women's bodies to conform to the numbers based off male bodies is a recipe for disaster.
Topic by topic, Yu discusses how women's bodies are different (menstruation, having breasts, going through childbirth) and how they affect performance in sports. It's engaging, informative, and very well-written.
It's becoming more well-known (partially because of books like Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men) that a lot of the base science about the human body - agreed upon figures that are deemed to represent the "average" human - were gathered from men. It's also becoming more clear to us that men and women's bodies are extremely different. Expecting women's bodies to conform to the numbers based off male bodies is a recipe for disaster.
Topic by topic, Yu discusses how women's bodies are different (menstruation, having breasts, going through childbirth) and how they affect performance in sports. It's engaging, informative, and very well-written.
May 29, 2023
Thanks to the publisher for an advance reader copy of Up To Speed: The Groundbreaking Science of Women's Sports. With this book, Yu fills a HUGE, GAPING hole in the scientific community's knowledge around athletic performance, and she does it incredibly well.
To my knowledge no one else has gone as broadly into the many factors that mediate women's sports performance or done so with such great attention to the many nuances present in a population as large as half the population. While Yu offers a lot of information, including data and statistics that could easily be read as dry and skimmable, she seamlessly weaves in anecdotes from the 140+ interviews she conducted to write this book, making it an extremely compelling and memorable read.
For active women, coaches of women and girls, and parents of young female athletes, Up to Speed should be required reading.
To my knowledge no one else has gone as broadly into the many factors that mediate women's sports performance or done so with such great attention to the many nuances present in a population as large as half the population. While Yu offers a lot of information, including data and statistics that could easily be read as dry and skimmable, she seamlessly weaves in anecdotes from the 140+ interviews she conducted to write this book, making it an extremely compelling and memorable read.
For active women, coaches of women and girls, and parents of young female athletes, Up to Speed should be required reading.
May 22, 2023
I won a copy of Up To Speed from Oh! Run Club and Pens and Paces.
This is a comprehensive, well-researched book covering everything you can imagine about women athletes. Title IX may have expanded women's sports, but the science has lagged behind. Most advice and guidance for women has been based on studies of men. And as we know, thanks to Stacy Sims, women are NOT small men! Yu takes the reader beyond what we've learned from other trailblazers, providing the latest advice for women in every stage of life. There's a ton of information here, but Yu is an engaging author and sprinkles in lots of anecdotes. This book should be required reading for anyone responsible for coaching female athletes. Me, I'll keep my copy handy for quick reference!
This is a comprehensive, well-researched book covering everything you can imagine about women athletes. Title IX may have expanded women's sports, but the science has lagged behind. Most advice and guidance for women has been based on studies of men. And as we know, thanks to Stacy Sims, women are NOT small men! Yu takes the reader beyond what we've learned from other trailblazers, providing the latest advice for women in every stage of life. There's a ton of information here, but Yu is an engaging author and sprinkles in lots of anecdotes. This book should be required reading for anyone responsible for coaching female athletes. Me, I'll keep my copy handy for quick reference!
June 4, 2023
Fascinating, and enraging.
This is a book for everyone who's ever tried sports bra after sports bra after sports bra, before finally settling for something less than ideal, and everyone who's never even considered that struggle as a necessary prerequisite for many to be active.
UP TO SPEED begins "with the story of how sex and gender bias came to corrupt the systems of scientific research and sports and why men are so privy to so much more information about their bodies than women." Topics covered include the impacts of discrimination against women in sports, the menstrual cycle, nutrition, endurance, injury, breast health, gear, as well as adolescence, pregnancy and the postpartum period, and menopause.
Author Christine Yu covers the scientific literature in colloquial language and incorporates athletes' stories throughout. This is a book I couldn't read without sharing countless passages with my running partner. I think it's a needed book, and am grateful to the author and all those cited for making it happen. (At the same time, I hope an update/volume II is needed sooner rather than later!)
Thank you to Riverhead Books for a free copy of this title for review.
This is a book for everyone who's ever tried sports bra after sports bra after sports bra, before finally settling for something less than ideal, and everyone who's never even considered that struggle as a necessary prerequisite for many to be active.
UP TO SPEED begins "with the story of how sex and gender bias came to corrupt the systems of scientific research and sports and why men are so privy to so much more information about their bodies than women." Topics covered include the impacts of discrimination against women in sports, the menstrual cycle, nutrition, endurance, injury, breast health, gear, as well as adolescence, pregnancy and the postpartum period, and menopause.
Author Christine Yu covers the scientific literature in colloquial language and incorporates athletes' stories throughout. This is a book I couldn't read without sharing countless passages with my running partner. I think it's a needed book, and am grateful to the author and all those cited for making it happen. (At the same time, I hope an update/volume II is needed sooner rather than later!)
Thank you to Riverhead Books for a free copy of this title for review.
July 15, 2023
"And it’s not just a matter of inclusion or diversity. The biases, resource gaps, and structural inequities carry important stakes, ones that affect real human beings."
Pros: I'm glad I came across this book, especially after reading Caroline Perez's Invisible Women. Up To Speed is a similar book which focuses more on women in sports. The work is very well cited and researched and leaves no rock unturned. I wish I could recommend this book to everyone, women, men and others, so that they would understand how half of the population's body works and how women are not just the faulty half. This book has also been a personal revelation as I learnt things I didn't know about my own physiology.
Cons: The first 1-2 chapters are a bit slow, but it gets pretty interesting after.
Pros: I'm glad I came across this book, especially after reading Caroline Perez's Invisible Women. Up To Speed is a similar book which focuses more on women in sports. The work is very well cited and researched and leaves no rock unturned. I wish I could recommend this book to everyone, women, men and others, so that they would understand how half of the population's body works and how women are not just the faulty half. This book has also been a personal revelation as I learnt things I didn't know about my own physiology.
Cons: The first 1-2 chapters are a bit slow, but it gets pretty interesting after.
May 21, 2023
Every body needs to read this book; not just women. This book expands on concepts and research I've read in other books (Dr. Stacy Sims, for instance) and provides updated and comprehensive information. I love how inclusive it is, not just focusing on cis gendered women.
May 25, 2023
It has been about a week since I finished UP TO SPEED, and I've found myself often thinking through the various topics and research and conclusions that Christine Yu included in her debut book. As I wrote about her book, "It has been a while since an audiobook has had me actually looking forward to being stuck in Southern California traffic, but @cyu888's incredible UP TO SPEED, narrated by the masterful @CindyKay_VO, has me doing just that. Compelled me to buy the hardcopy for my wife even!"
First, a note on Christine's book; her writing compels your attention, but in such an engaging way that you cannot help but learn and appreciate her points. I can't express enough gratitude for such mastery. More than once since reading Up to Speed, I've found myself in conversations where I'll interject, "Did you know that..." and proceed to recount something I gleaned from her book.
Second, a note on Cindy Kay's narration. She is a consummate professional. I'll be the first to admit that I've listened to (and, like with Up to Speed, been made aware of) many books simply because she narrates them with such poise and aplomb. I owe her debts of gratitude for that exposure.
In short, Christine highlights a too long neglected disparity between how we treat all current and former athletes, and offers hope that the knowledge gap is at least narrowing. I can't wait to read what she turns her talents to next.
First, a note on Christine's book; her writing compels your attention, but in such an engaging way that you cannot help but learn and appreciate her points. I can't express enough gratitude for such mastery. More than once since reading Up to Speed, I've found myself in conversations where I'll interject, "Did you know that..." and proceed to recount something I gleaned from her book.
Second, a note on Cindy Kay's narration. She is a consummate professional. I'll be the first to admit that I've listened to (and, like with Up to Speed, been made aware of) many books simply because she narrates them with such poise and aplomb. I owe her debts of gratitude for that exposure.
In short, Christine highlights a too long neglected disparity between how we treat all current and former athletes, and offers hope that the knowledge gap is at least narrowing. I can't wait to read what she turns her talents to next.
May 23, 2023
Yu's book is outstanding. It is nuanced, evidenced based, sensitive and direct. Yu calls out the gaps in research on female bodies, from how our ligaments, bones and muscles move differently, the menstrual cycle from menses to menopause, pregnancy, and all the other fun things female bodies experience. Using a bio, psycho, social lens Yu navigates the territory between sex and gender with sensitive, nuanced lens demonstrating our sameness across genders and sex and the differences we all face. Everyone needs to read her book, because closing the gaps in sex and gender in research and society, will only make the world a better place.
June 3, 2023
This book is a fantastic addition for me as a female athlete. Very eye opening. Must read for any female looking to get into more serious exercise.
June 11, 2023
A must-read for women athletes at any level of sport participation. Yu compiles the research on women in sports and, not surprisingly, finds how little research is available about women in general and women athletes in particular. The book is a literature review but written for a general population, full of anecdotes, and some personal experience to keep readers engaged.
See more reviews at www.sportstoriespress.com
See more reviews at www.sportstoriespress.com
June 1, 2023
A must-read for athletes, coaches, and any one interested in sports. Loved this inclusive and scientific take on women’s athletics, and what we can and most do better to support all people in sports, regardless of gender identity.
May 27, 2023
“Females aren’t physically weaker than males.” But also, “Here are all the ways that males have a physical advantage in sport in almost all aspects.”
“Biological sex isn’t real.” But also, “Here’s an entire book documenting sex-based differences and the sex-based research gap in sports medicine.”
“I’m writing this to do right by women in sport.” But also, “Let’s refer to females as ‘non-male bodies’ which is totally not the most misogynistic way to define them.”
Many “revelations” were common sense knowledge (e.g. wearing uncomfortable clothing will make performance worse.) While some of the data was fascinating, the incessant doublethink made this an utterly exhausting read.
“Biological sex isn’t real.” But also, “Here’s an entire book documenting sex-based differences and the sex-based research gap in sports medicine.”
“I’m writing this to do right by women in sport.” But also, “Let’s refer to females as ‘non-male bodies’ which is totally not the most misogynistic way to define them.”
Many “revelations” were common sense knowledge (e.g. wearing uncomfortable clothing will make performance worse.) While some of the data was fascinating, the incessant doublethink made this an utterly exhausting read.
January 14, 2024
A good book but I'm not sure if I learned anything new from it. The author gave some anecdotal pieces of information but wasn't able to offer up any scientific facts because they don't exist because there's so much bias in who and what is researched.
Much of what we know today around exercise and nutrition is based on studies done only on men. Women getting injured or missing their periods while training is normalized when it absolutely should not be! It's frustrating because women want to exercise and we want to do it sustainably... but right now we just don't have enough information to do that.
Much of what we know today around exercise and nutrition is based on studies done only on men. Women getting injured or missing their periods while training is normalized when it absolutely should not be! It's frustrating because women want to exercise and we want to do it sustainably... but right now we just don't have enough information to do that.
September 3, 2023
I went into this book thinking it would be about the science of female training and give more actionable steps or insights into how best to train for women. That was not what it was at all, but I still enjoyed the book as a whole. Enjoyed isn't the right word—because it was actually infuriating to read about how little we know about women's bodies. There is barely any research done on women when it comes to health and fitness, which is so frustrating. But the author does a really great job at leading us through what those missing parts are. Did you know women weren't allowed to compete in the marathon until the 1970s? That was so outrageous to me!! Definitely think it's a must-read for everyone. Fitness is so important to leading a healthy life but women are fed so much misinformation and this is a necessary conversation to be had.
June 9, 2023
As a person who spent nearly 5 years writing content for a company focused on the gender wealth gap, I immediately put any book that talks about gender gaps on my list. And as a hobby runner, I pulled this one to the top. What a fascinating, important book Yu has given us.
She discusses the current state of research into how women’s bodies respond to standard fitness advice (spoiler alert: it’s paltry at best). Then she talks in depth about various aspects of athletics — exercise, nutrition, hormones, menstruation, etc — and points out the current danger of too little information and challenges to researching it more. She also highlights people who are doing the work today and tells stories from elite women athletes.
It started a little slow for me because I’m so familiar with the presence of gender gaps overall (I didn’t need to be convinced of that), but that definitely wasn’t the case the whole way through. Any woman who is active or pursues athletic goals (or coaches women) should read this book.
CONTENT AND TRIGGER WARNINGS:
Medical content; Disordered eating; Fatphobia (discussed, not expressed by the author)
She discusses the current state of research into how women’s bodies respond to standard fitness advice (spoiler alert: it’s paltry at best). Then she talks in depth about various aspects of athletics — exercise, nutrition, hormones, menstruation, etc — and points out the current danger of too little information and challenges to researching it more. She also highlights people who are doing the work today and tells stories from elite women athletes.
It started a little slow for me because I’m so familiar with the presence of gender gaps overall (I didn’t need to be convinced of that), but that definitely wasn’t the case the whole way through. Any woman who is active or pursues athletic goals (or coaches women) should read this book.
CONTENT AND TRIGGER WARNINGS:
Medical content; Disordered eating; Fatphobia (discussed, not expressed by the author)
May 11, 2024
I'm so happy that we read this book for our book club! Such a surprising read for me this year, but I'm so happy to have found it.
I loved the way the chapters were broken down and the topics chosen. I love being able to reflect back on the topics, so here's a couple of the ones that stood out in my mind:
- lack of representation of women in both the subjects of scientific studies and the field of sports science
- hormones and periods affect on athletes
- fueling and underfueling and the sometimes lifelong health affects this can have
- cultural factors (not only biological) that are to blame for various types of issues women have including knee injuries and concussions
- lack of women's sport specific equipment and why this matters (as well as where differences in equipment are not necessary)
- childhood athletics
- pre-, during, and post-partum athletes
- peri- and post-menopause
I loved her inclusive language, the breadth of topics covered, and the real life stories. I remember arguing with a boy in high school, where he kept arguing that male tennis players were simply always better and would always win, even in our high school athletics department. I remember going home and writing an entire essay to share on our class's message board about why he was wrong and why the way he chose to share his belief and look down on women athletes simply for being women was extremely harmful. I wish I could have read this book then or had it as a resource. It's everything I wanted to say and more.
This book helped provide a lot of context on both sports history and scientific context. It made feel so lucky to have grown up in this time period, where women have had the opportunity to play sports and find even some kind of sports attire. This book made me feel grateful and gave me the opportunity to reflect on all of the women who have come before and fought for our collective rights. It also made me feel inspired to take my own health and nutrition more seriously, which I appreciate.
This author also had so many great suggestions and points on so many topics including, such as even simply allowing women to finally play the same number of sets in a tennis match as men do. I was shocked to learn about these various rule differences in a number of sports due to the thought that women can't handle intense play.
It will never not be horrifying and shocking to learn about all the various ways women have been belittled and pushed aside throughout the years, but in the end I found this book truly uplifting in that she offered so many ideas on things women can do in their personal lives and communities as well as research ideas on a wide range of topics where there is more to learn. Now what's left is for future researchers to take up the task and for us all to listen to the results.
Sam’s pick
I loved the way the chapters were broken down and the topics chosen. I love being able to reflect back on the topics, so here's a couple of the ones that stood out in my mind:
- lack of representation of women in both the subjects of scientific studies and the field of sports science
- hormones and periods affect on athletes
- fueling and underfueling and the sometimes lifelong health affects this can have
- cultural factors (not only biological) that are to blame for various types of issues women have including knee injuries and concussions
- lack of women's sport specific equipment and why this matters (as well as where differences in equipment are not necessary)
- childhood athletics
- pre-, during, and post-partum athletes
- peri- and post-menopause
I loved her inclusive language, the breadth of topics covered, and the real life stories. I remember arguing with a boy in high school, where he kept arguing that male tennis players were simply always better and would always win, even in our high school athletics department. I remember going home and writing an entire essay to share on our class's message board about why he was wrong and why the way he chose to share his belief and look down on women athletes simply for being women was extremely harmful. I wish I could have read this book then or had it as a resource. It's everything I wanted to say and more.
This book helped provide a lot of context on both sports history and scientific context. It made feel so lucky to have grown up in this time period, where women have had the opportunity to play sports and find even some kind of sports attire. This book made me feel grateful and gave me the opportunity to reflect on all of the women who have come before and fought for our collective rights. It also made me feel inspired to take my own health and nutrition more seriously, which I appreciate.
This author also had so many great suggestions and points on so many topics including, such as even simply allowing women to finally play the same number of sets in a tennis match as men do. I was shocked to learn about these various rule differences in a number of sports due to the thought that women can't handle intense play.
It will never not be horrifying and shocking to learn about all the various ways women have been belittled and pushed aside throughout the years, but in the end I found this book truly uplifting in that she offered so many ideas on things women can do in their personal lives and communities as well as research ideas on a wide range of topics where there is more to learn. Now what's left is for future researchers to take up the task and for us all to listen to the results.
Sam’s pick
November 13, 2023
Yu paints an informative, multi-faceted, well-researched picture that brought me many new insights into what it means to compete as a female athlete within structures inherently not designed for us. I felt so seen & validated on several challenges Yu explores, and also had my perspective broadened learning about struggles other women face that I don’t. I learned so much new information on personal, historical, and systemic levels. Ultimately, I’m left feeling righteously enraged at the lack of medical research, funding, and overall support for women/girl athletes.
April 29, 2024
I LOVE RUNNING. I LOVE WOMEN. I kept having to check the copyright date to see when this data was from and make sure it was valid bc WTF.
September 25, 2023
Love this book!! Men (and everybody) need to read !
September 9, 2023
A good overview of the literature regarding women in sports, especially related to the ways hormonal and body compositional sex differences have been ignored in the approach to training programmes for female pro athletes.
The sports wear market analysis part was a bit tedious - I find it hard to believe that the US soccer team's 2019 uniform that was "specially designed for women" was really *that* different than normal expensive active wear available in 2019. Even if it was (doubtful) the idea that this issue is as important as the systemic promotion of eating disorders within professional and rookie sports, or the lack of labour law protections for pro-athletes if they get pregnant, is laughable.
There's also a lot of lip service to the fact of general socioeconomic and gender diversity issues playing a role in preventing sports participation, but there's not really any meaningful analysis of these factors. These passing mentions seem to act more as a way of signifying to the reader that the author is indeed a good virtuous liberal than to actually advocate for anything (other than market based solutions in the sports wear market...).
Criticisms aside, it's very well written and researched
The sports wear market analysis part was a bit tedious - I find it hard to believe that the US soccer team's 2019 uniform that was "specially designed for women" was really *that* different than normal expensive active wear available in 2019. Even if it was (doubtful) the idea that this issue is as important as the systemic promotion of eating disorders within professional and rookie sports, or the lack of labour law protections for pro-athletes if they get pregnant, is laughable.
There's also a lot of lip service to the fact of general socioeconomic and gender diversity issues playing a role in preventing sports participation, but there's not really any meaningful analysis of these factors. These passing mentions seem to act more as a way of signifying to the reader that the author is indeed a good virtuous liberal than to actually advocate for anything (other than market based solutions in the sports wear market...).
Criticisms aside, it's very well written and researched
September 16, 2023
This book was a little weird for me. It’s basically a literature review of studies on women’s health/physiology as it relates to female athletes to show that there is a lack of research on those topics. However, the tone and meta point of the book didn’t really land for me, which might have been my own misunderstanding thinking this book would be about all active women, not just professional and collegiate level competitors. It felt like every chapter was essentially “women have it rough and lack fundamental data/guidance BUT women athletes have it worse!” The author even includes a quote in the chapter on menopause of a researcher complaining that most studies on women’s strength training post-menopause are focused on public health impact (like if it is helpful in preventing osteoporosis) instead of how to optimally strength train older women. To me this seems like a fair prioritization considering how few people of either gender are elite athletes. While the author does make good points on how much we don’t know or are just beginning to learn about women’s bodies, making it all about ultra runners, the US women’s soccer team, etc just didn’t land for me. My favorite parts were some of the sprinklings of women’s history in sports that were in earlier chapters, like realizing the sports bra wasn’t invented until the 1970s!
July 21, 2023
This book is so important for coaches, parents of athletic girls, and women of all ages to read. I thought I pretty much already knew and had a general understanding of all the points Christine Yu would make in her book. I was wrong. She enhanced my knowledge of female physiology a great deal, and she put it all in historic context with case studies that made for a compelling read.
As I wrote in a book review in my newsletter:
Yu’s book artfully pulls together and makes sense of volumes of research and trends related to women in sport and the science of studying them. She brings the research to life by using compelling case studies of women from myriad sports, and she also dives deep into history to show how female athletes have struggled to be taken seriously—and studied scientifically—because sports and exercise historically have been viewed as a masculine domain.
I loved this book for several reasons. One, it enhanced my understanding of women’s bodies and especially the role of hormones in development. Two, medical history is always fascinating, sometimes gruesome, and in this book’s early chapters we read about how early medicine screwed over women and created false, pseudoscientific narratives about women being frail and vulnerable.
You can read the full book review in the second half of this newsletter post: https://sarahrunning.substack.com/p/r...
As I wrote in a book review in my newsletter:
Yu’s book artfully pulls together and makes sense of volumes of research and trends related to women in sport and the science of studying them. She brings the research to life by using compelling case studies of women from myriad sports, and she also dives deep into history to show how female athletes have struggled to be taken seriously—and studied scientifically—because sports and exercise historically have been viewed as a masculine domain.
I loved this book for several reasons. One, it enhanced my understanding of women’s bodies and especially the role of hormones in development. Two, medical history is always fascinating, sometimes gruesome, and in this book’s early chapters we read about how early medicine screwed over women and created false, pseudoscientific narratives about women being frail and vulnerable.
You can read the full book review in the second half of this newsletter post: https://sarahrunning.substack.com/p/r...
March 20, 2024
This was a pretty fascinating read, I really enjoyed how Yu spoke about so many different sports because it really helped highlight how these issues are systemic and not just a football problem or a gymnastics problem etc. It was, however, a pretty depressing read to really see just how deep misogyny runs in every aspect of life - particularly in science and medicine. The system has well and truely been rigged against us.
I appreciated the consideration of trans and non-binary athletes - it was very limited but understandably so given the lack of available research.
My one gripe would have to that this book gets spoken about and recommended constantly in discussions about female footballers and ACL injuries (which was why I bought it) - however it only briefly mentioned this issue 1-2 times and while it provided valuable background context I had hoped we’d get some more substance discussing this specific issue.
So I would recommend this for anyone with a more general interest or wanting a foundation of knowledge but not if you want to learn too specifically about football and ACLs (or any single sport and it’s accompanying injuries).
I appreciated the consideration of trans and non-binary athletes - it was very limited but understandably so given the lack of available research.
My one gripe would have to that this book gets spoken about and recommended constantly in discussions about female footballers and ACL injuries (which was why I bought it) - however it only briefly mentioned this issue 1-2 times and while it provided valuable background context I had hoped we’d get some more substance discussing this specific issue.
So I would recommend this for anyone with a more general interest or wanting a foundation of knowledge but not if you want to learn too specifically about football and ACLs (or any single sport and it’s accompanying injuries).
February 5, 2024
I am grateful for this book. In Up to Speed, Yu has meticulously researched the science behind women athletes. What she found was that previous students of athletes focused on men, yet was adapted to women. She also notes how there are still gaps in our understanding of women athletes- especially as they age. She observes everything from clothing to periods and how it has (or has not) shown up in scientific literature. What she sees in the need for more. More studies focused on women athletes as well as those who identify as intersex or transgender. More coaches who understand that young women's bodies don't develop the same way as men's, who are curious about the impact of menstruation on performance rather than running from it. If you are an athlete (current or former) , coach, parent I recommend this book. I hope the dialogue continues.
November 3, 2023
I don't know that I would ever define myself as an athlete, but having grown up playing sports, being active and enjoying moving my body, I found this book to be really interesting. I felt somewhat foolishly naive at how many jaw-dropping moments of WTF I had about how little research has been done on women and the consequences of that lack of research.
November 12, 2023
I am so glad that this book was written!! So important to call out inequities and gender gaps in sports that have been widely expected as the norm for so long. Yu pointed out so many facets of athleticism that I personally have accepted as just “how it is” to be a female in sports. It was really cool to dive into the progress that has been made and the huge bounds that are needed across all aspects of women’s sports and athletics.
Got me all sorts of fired up!!
Got me all sorts of fired up!!
April 5, 2024
wow! I can't say enough positive things about reading this book. It was so interesting reading this as someone who studied exercise science for 3.5 years since I had learned about many of the concepts and mechanisms discussed throughout. I especially enjoyed the sections where she talked about the anatomical differences that put female athletes at a greater risk for ACL and other knee injuries since I did an entire research project. This made me miss the Kin department at MC and Doc T so I will be texting her and telling her about this book in the near future.
December 13, 2023
So good! All of the things in sport/activity that always seemed just a bit off as a woman are wonderfully discussed. I learned a lot & even cried once. It was a perfect blend of data & stories & discussion!
July 8, 2023
Great information. Looking forward to the possibilities of women's fitness. I am thinking I need to find a NAMS specialist to help me through menopause and my prolific sweating during class :D
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