Why we need to talk about periods, breasts and injuries in women's sport
Teams of scientists are researching the unique ways that elite sport affects the female body – how breasts alter the way you run, but the right sports bra could give you the edge; how the menstrual cycle could impact performance and what role period trackers could play; and why is there a higher risk of some injuries, and what can be done to avoid them?
It's a far cry from the era when professional female athletes told me they were thought of simply as "mini-men".
It was fitted by Prof Joanna Wakefield-Scurr, from the University of Portsmouth, who proudly goes by the nickname the Bra Professor.
Laboratory experiments – using motion sensors on the chest – have revealed how a shifting mass of breast tissue alters the movement of the rest of the body, and in turn, sporting performance.
"For some women, their breasts can be really quite heavy and if that weight moves, it can change the movement of your torso, it can even change the amount of force that you exert on the ground," Prof Wakefield-Scurr tells me.
