This episode of the Female Athlete Nutrition podcast is with sports physiologist Julia Casadio. Julia’s work includes helping Olympic athletes prepare to compete in the heat, as well as educating coaches, parents, and athletes involved in youth female sport.

We dive straight into Julia’s area of expertise: heat training. She talks about the what, why, how, and when to heat train for both professional and everyday athletes. This includes differentiating between acclimation and acclimatization, passive and active heat training, and strategies we can all implement. Julia talks about helping Olympians prepare to compete in the heat, as well as easy heat training protocols we can do ourselves. Julia highlights differences in how women and men should heat train, variance in sweat rate between genders,  as well as the influence of the menstrual cycle on temperature and fluid regulation.

We talk about Julia’s most recent project: Her Strength, an online learning platform for coaches, parents, and athletes involved in youth female sport. Julia speaks to the importance of educating coaches working with adolescent female athletes on a variety of topics: female puberty and sport, health, nutrition, training and recovery optimisation, and psychological considerations. We discuss the impact of puberty on performance, normalizing plateaus and body changes, and how working with your body as it changes results in better long term performance. We give listeners tips for improving performance through puberty without controlling your body and food. Julia answers the end of the podcast questions and shares her plans for future athlete- and parent-focused resources on Her Strength.

TOPIC TIMESTAMPS:

3:30 Heat training 101: what, why, when, and how; heat training protocols and strategies 

9:45 Heat training for the everyday athletes

11:40 Adaptations and benefits of heat training 

14:30 Sweat differences in female athletes; the impact of the menstrual cycle on temperature regulation 

16:30 Her Strength: supporting young athletes

21:05 The importance of educating coaches on female athletes

26:10 Understanding puberty challenges: body changes and performance plateaus 

29:00 Improving performance through puberty 

34:05 Her Strength’s online course for coaches and parents; future resources for athletes 

36:40 End of the podcast questions 

Check out Her Strength.

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