Chari Hawkins will compete at the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow, Scotland, in March 2024.
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When Olympic heptathlete Chari Hawkins competed in college, she says she was constantly judging her body It seems.
“The crazy thing is how much it affected my performance,” she said in a 2022 interview with The Voice of Sports podcast. What can be done.
But Hawkins’ mindset will change when she takes to the track in Paris this week. She said she now values the ability to nourish her body. “As a person, I move, I glide, I jump, I throw. Being able to make that transition really makes me thrive,” she said in the YouTube video.
For decades, the concept of “lighter is faster” has been the dominant concept followed by most track and field coaches in physical training, especially for endurance athletes. Young female runners often have higher body fat percentages than men, and coaches encourage them to lose weight to improve performance.
Today, many female runners are changing that. They are discovering the dangers of poor nutrition, including the risk of eating disorders, and are seeking guidance to support proper energy intake. The old model of training for weight loss is giving way to an emphasis on strength and endurance.
“As an ally and partner to athletes with body image issues or eating disorders, my whole perspective on how to deal with issues is completely different than it was 10 years ago,” said Shelia Burrell, Hawkins’ Olympic coach. .
Chari Hawkins competes in the women’s heptathlon javelin during the U.S. Track and Field Olympic Team Trials on Monday, June 24, 2024, in Eugene, Oregon.
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Fuel for performance, not “looking like a runner”
Many coaches now say that focusing on lowering your body fat percentage may do more harm than good. When female athletes lose too much weight, it can lead to bone loss, fractures, amenorrhea (shortened menstrual cycles), and damage to a variety of other major body systems, from the nervous system to cardiovascular function.
This puts them at risk for a condition called exercise-relative energy deficiency (REDS). When highly trained athletes deprive their bodies of energy, they may see very short-term performance advantages, but often the advantages are not long-lasting and the physical and mental harm can pile up.
Former NCAA Division I steeplechase champion Allie Ostrander has publicly stated that she will undergo hospitalization for an eating disorder in 2021 after suffering multiple bone stress injuries and missing periods for years. As she began recovery, she sought guidance to support a healthy body image and ways to replenish her energy.
“I used to think my body needed to change to change my health, but this year has taught me that’s not the case. I’m running better now than I was in January because my training has improved, not because I’m looking More like a runner’,” Ostrander wrote on her Instagram this summer. In fact, she finished seventh overall in this year’s U.S. Olympic Trials, setting a new personal record in the 3,000-meter obstacle course.
Ostrander’s coaching staff, David and Megan Roach, are dedicated to helping athletes hone this mindset.
David Roach didn’t grow up in the running world. He went to college as a football player. While in graduate school, he began studying endurance running and questioning what seemed to be a common belief among running coaches that athletes should limit their food intake.
“It seems ridiculous that this sport forces athletes to cause long-term damage to their bodies in a very specific way through eating disorders,” he told me.
So he did the opposite. His approach to feeling strong and performing well included eating regularly and never limiting the types of food his body craved. He ultimately won the 2014 USATF Sub-Ultra Distance Trail Runner of the Year title. His wife, Megan, a doctor and epidemiologist, has a similar approach to refueling. She is a five-time national champion and was named the 2016 USATF Ultra Distance and Sub-Ultra Distance Cross Country Athlete of the Year.
Athletes compete in the women’s 3,000-meter steeplechase during the U.S. Track and Field Olympic Team Trials on Monday, June 24, 2024, in Eugene, Oregon.
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Help runners become their “strongest self”
Although research into REDS, also known as the female athlete triad, began in the 1990s, it took years for coaches and runners to change the way they talked about the issue. A 2022 study of collegiate cross country athletes, coaches and trainers revealed that 84% of athletes, 89% of coaches and 71% of athletic trainers reported receiving no Triad or REDS training from their current institution.
Today, the Roche family works with hundreds of ultra, trail, road and track runners. Some people seek them out specifically because of the way they direct food. “Sometimes I think the sport forgets that runners need to be their strongest selves,” said David Roach.
As Roach works with athletes with a background in eating disorders, he redefines the concept of food as a way to express respect and love for yourself and as a way to provide your body with what it needs to perform optimally. way of stuff, and him backing it all up requires a lot of research. In fact, Roche often says that eating enough is the key most As an important part of training for endurance athletes.
Research on this topic has increased exponentially in recent years. Many people indicate a lack of energy even for a day, Can negatively impact the endocrine and nervous systems, reproductive health, and impact mental health and performance. These effects can grow exponentially when an athlete experiences energy deficits for months or even years, as many athletes experience.
As research advances, recent coaching programs across the country have begun to change the old mindset that track and field coaches often rely on food and body type.
This year, the University of Colorado fired its longtime track and field head coach after a 2023 internal investigation revealed that the program required and overemphasized body composition testing for all athletes, often telling athletes they had the lowest body fat percentage. Two.
Several other programs across the country have been hit with similar accusations from current and former athletes, suggesting a generational shift is underway.
A new way to talk about athletes’ bodies
Shelia Burrell, coach of heptathlete Chari Hawkins and a two-time Olympic heptathlete herself in 2000 and 2004, said that since she became an athlete , the relationship between coaches and athletes has changed dramatically. “Coaches can say whatever they want,” she said.
A few years ago, however, Burrell, the head track and field coach at San Diego State University, realized she needed to change the way she talked to her coaches about energy and body image. One of her top college athletes was injured and had to take some time off, so Burrell brought her in for a motivational talk and mentioned that the young woman could return to training this offseason, including losing the weight she had gained. While she was resting. .
The athlete responded by severely overtraining. “She took it too far. It wasn’t my intention, but her desire to please me took her a little too far,” Burrell said.
The experience prompted Burrell to update her coaching strategies, learn more about REDS and nutrition, and start “paying more attention to my words.”
Even the way Burrell talks about his body in front of athletes has changed. “The way you talk about your body can also have a negative impact on how athletes feel,” she said. She’s working with her staff and athletes to not associate a runner’s appearance with the food they eat or their “health” or “body shape,” so athletes don’t confuse aesthetic goals with performance goals.
When Burrell coaches Hawkins in Paris this week, she said she will focus on the whole athlete: performance, emotion, self-talk and strength. When it comes to food and nutrition, she follows Hawkins’ lead rather than preaching anything from on high. Her new approach, she said, is to be more responsive as a coach rather than directive.
“Many athletes now are very aware of their bodies and what a healthy diet looks like,” she said.
“Today, it’s much better to let athletes, especially female athletes, explore and figure out what works for them and what doesn’t, rather than just telling them what to do. That’s no longer the case.
Maggie Mertens is a Seattle-based journalist and editor of Better, faster, further: How running is changing what we know about women.
