Meet the Team – Philip Hatzis – Female athletes in Sport
Philip, you are someone who has built a reputation at working with high performing age-group female athletes, often taking them from competitors to real contenders and not just working with people who were already at the sharp end. We are delighted to ask you some questions.
Firstly, to back up the assertion above, what successes do you feel you have had with female athletes in triathlon?
Well, that is a real conversation starter! I am fortunate enough to have worked with some excellent athletes who have undoubtedly helped developed me as a coach. I guess it is easy to focus on the accolades at the sharp end of the race: ITU AG Podiums, ETU and British Elite Athletes, IRONMAN Champion, IRONMAN World Champion (military), IRONMAN Top 20 AG overall, first female Iranian Athlete to Kona and the ITU AG World Champs. But I also like to point out that I have as much success with multiple first time IRONMAN and IRONMAN 70.3 finishers, AG qualifiers for the GB team as well as successfully training an athlete through pregnancy and back out the other side into training fitness. I feel all too often, people focus on the ‘wow’ factors and miss out on the everyday heroines.
So, what is it that you enjoy about working with female athletes?
I find that there are a few exciting differences when working with female athletes. In particular when focussing on the faster end of long-distance racing. Firstly, the margin for error is tiny. If you are working with a high-performing Kona hopeful, they need to be one of the fastest if not the quickest AG in the race. And if that is the focus, then the margin for error is small. We look at the whole picture. We know there is unlikely to be a roll down and it is improbable that there will be more than one slot. So, we must really make sure we make the probability of winning, high. It makes the whole experience a lot of fun as a coach as everything matters. You can’t leave a stone un-turned. You have to discuss all the different points. Also, the physiology is different, what works for men doesn’t work for female athletes which means every athlete has to have their own programme and schedule, you can’t just take a cookie-cutter approach to triathlon training. (Not that I do for male athletes!). Also, the psychology comes into it a little more easily than with male athletes. I always find you can have a more open conversation. With men, it can take a little longer as the idea of talking about feelings isn’t so normalised (yet!). With women, I guess, there are more challenges to overcome, and because of these challenges, the opportunity for error is less, which makes my job harder but also more rewarding. It is also fun working with athletes who chick men’s egos too.
You touched on female physiology above, can you pick out the key areas that you specifically focus on when working with females? And should all male coaches be more aware of these factors?
This is a crucial point. Physiologically women are very different from men. Week to week, they will have different hormone levels and balances and as a result, are physiologically different each week too. On any given week, they will be able to push harder or find it harder to reach specific targets; are more prone to injury, or will thrive on intensity. This is the first step to coaching a female athlete: you need to know where in their cycle they are. Only then can you build a training programme specific to them and built around the phase of their cycle they are in. Furthermore, for female athletes, we also need to develop a nutrition plan around both the training and their menstrual cycle. Once that is in place, you are in an informed position to deliver excellent training for the athletes.
Without this first step, you are just guessing. People shouldn’t be paying you to “guess”! Should male coaches me more aware of these factors? Well, triathlon is a mixed sport. Unless they are planning on only coaching men, this is an essential and fundamental part of physiology, and they absolutely should not only be aware of it but understand it and work with it. The question should really be why aren’t they aware of these factors? To date, it hasn’t appeared on the curriculum for coaching. (NB all our coaches have a module on female physiology before they start working for us!). If men can’t, won’t or don’t want to be aware of this, they shouldn’t be coaching women!
What do you feel you have failed on?
That is a great question. I feel that with there being a lot more understanding surrounding female physiology, I do think that I could have done a better with many of my female athletes at an earlier stage of my coaching career. But then I guess, that could be true for anything you do early on. The more you know, the more you know you don’t know, and the more you improve. One athlete who sticks out turned out to be menopausal, and it took about a year for us to diagnose this (with the doctor’s help) as we were going down the route of training fatigue, NFOR etc. Ironically, I had just written up a session for our coaches on athletes going through menopause and totally missed the symptoms under my nose! I feel I failed that athlete as I should have really picked it up sooner. However, as with all things in life, you learn from them, and you make sure you don’t make the same mistake again.
How would you like to see female triathlon change?
I’d really like to see it continue the trend it is. I feel female athletes, triathletes, in particular, are gaining a lot more confidence in their sport. We are seeing very fast females at the front of the pro field, challenging the lesser male pros, and this inspires younger generations. I think brands, companies etc. need to do more to create more empowering kit and equipment. Women have different needs, concerns and approaches to the sport, and we want to ensure that we are open to all types of female athletes. HED is an example of a company which is pushing towards 50% female workforce, and though wheels, in theory, make little difference to you if you are a male or a female, the ethos is a great one. How can we take this approach and feed it back into ‘normal’ life so instead of it being surprised that there is a female (tri)athlete who eats loads, has muscles and sweats when exercising; people are surprised when that isn’t the approach women take in sport. We want to build a sport and environment where this normality is chased by everyone. Only then can we have real, data-driven conversations around equal pros at Kona, equal TV viewing, equal prize money (which exists already in triathlon). If we have a situation where sporting females are the normality, then we can have a far more representative sport. However, this starts for the culture of coaches, and sport influencers (directors, media etc.) so I believe as a coach now, all we can do is call out injustices, argue for equity and help showcase role models for female athletes along the way.
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Tri Training Harder are one of the leading Triathlon coaching providers in the UK, using our wealth of experience to unite scientific and technological research with already well-established and successful best practices, to create a formula for triathlon and endurance coaching that works.
The result is an honest, dynamic, yet simple new way of constructing an athlete’s training to allow them to reach their potential.
If you’re planning your next season, just starting out in the sport or are looking for extra guidance at the very top end of the field, we are here to help, and our coaches would be delighted to hear from you. You can contact us via the website, and one of the team will be in touch.