Sam Moore | Unlocking Success: Career Pathways in Athletic Performance

Sam Moore’s path into sport science is defined by taking risks and chasing meaningful questions. After a devastating knee injury as a collegiate athlete, Moore not only returned to compete, but she also discovered her calling in strength and conditioning. She recounts her coaching, sport science, and hybrid roles prior to leaving a full-time position to pursue her PhD at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Moore describes sport science as problem-solving and drawing evidence across disciplines to drive innovation. She discusses her research on female athlete availability in elite settings, including nuances like body composition, recovery, and high speed exposure in training. Moore advises young professionals to remain open-minded, pitch their ideal position if it does not exist, and go “all in”— knowing one decision does not define forever. Whether you are a coach or researcher, this episode delivers real-world insights on navigating your career with courage and curiosity.

Connect with Sam on Instagram: @sammoorestrong and Twitter/X: @SamMooreStrong | Find Eric on Instagram: @ericmcmahoncscs and LinkedIn: @ericmcmahoncscs  

“One of the biggest pieces of advice that I feel like was helpful for me in my career was that you can-- if you're good enough at something, somebody will pay you to do it. So, there might not be a job out there that is what you want to do with the description that you want. That's OK. You can go in, and you can sell it.” 18:53

“I think it was my mom that told me whatever choice you make is the right one because it's the one you made, and you don't have to do something forever. You can work a job for one year or for six months, right? […] I think that was really helpful for me to make a switch to that kind of mindset when it comes to my career rather than thinking I had to have it all planned out for the next 10 years at every point and every move.” 24:00

“In terms of any advice for the coaching world […] just being really curious and being transparent about it, I think is really important. And that's what's going to help drive us along.” 39:16

[00:00:02.60] Welcome to the NSCA Coaching Podcast season 9, episode 3.

[00:00:08.12] I think it was my mom that told me, whatever choice you make is the right one, because it's the one you made, and you don't have to do something forever. You can work a job for one year or for six months, right? But getting in there, really giving it your all, and then being able to identify, is this something that I want to do? Do I want to keep doing this? How do I want this to evolve?

[00:00:28.47] I think that was really helpful for me to make a switch to that kind of mindset when it comes to my career, rather than thinking I had to have it all planned out for the next 10 years at every point and every move. And I think goals are important, obviously, but just for me and how I work, it really was transitioning to more of putting my all in, growing where I'm at as much as I can. And then when I-- when it's time to move on, I'll know.

[00:00:56.21] This is the NSCA's Coaching Podcast where we talk to strength and conditioning coaches about what you really need to know, but probably didn't learn in school. There's strength and conditioning. And then there's everything else.

[00:01:06.72] This is the NSCA Coaching Podcast season 9. I'm Eric McMahon, the NSCA coaching and sports science program manager. And we continue to delve into coaching backgrounds and pathways. It's not uncommon for strength and conditioning coaches to go to graduate schools, have master's degrees, or pursue their PhD.

[00:01:25.43] Depending on your path, higher education can help to improve career prospects. Today, our guest is living that journey. Sam Moore, a doctoral candidate at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She has an awesome coaching background and has been very involved in the NSCA. Sam, welcome.

[00:01:45.53] Thank you. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.

[00:01:47.94] Yeah, it's fun to connect with you. Got to see you in real life on campus at UNC recently just visiting around the country at various campuses, seeing the strength and conditioning department, seeing the ex phys labs and all the places that coaches and sports scientists work.

[00:02:07.43] You've had a lot of roles. You've been a coach, a sports scientist. You're working as a researcher now. Let's start with what drives you in the sport performance profession.

[00:02:18.35] Yeah, it's a good question. I originally-- and I feel like I've told story a few times-- but I went into college really just to play volleyball. I went to University of Portland on a volleyball scholarship, and I chose English because it was the easiest class I felt like I had in high school.

[00:02:36.78] And so I was an English major for my first year and a half of college, and it wasn't until my freshman year, I suffered a season-ending knee injury. And through that rehab process with my surgery and coming back from the injury, it was the same surgery as Greg Oden had. So, I was told by the surgeon, not a lot of athletes really come back from this, and it is pretty limiting in terms of the long-term impact of it and your athleticism. And so to be freshly 18 years old and be told, like, you probably won't ever jump as high, you probably won't ever be as fast. And that was a lesson that I just wasn't ready to learn.

[00:03:21.45] And so I felt like in that rehab process, my strength and conditioning coaches, Brad Scott and Kat Wade at UP were really, really integral in not only advocating for me in those spaces, but giving me my career back. So I was able to come back from my first surgery, play volleyball for three more years, and also do two seasons of track. And I just felt like if I could be the person that could give to an athlete what my strength coaches gave to me of that opportunity when you're told, you could keep playing if you want, but most athletes don't to be able to keep playing was incredible.

[00:04:01.40] So that's really when I changed majors. I switched to biology, and then I ended up transferring for an exercise science program to Western Oregon. And I got to have my first internship with Kory Metzger, which was absolutely incredible. And I graduated with a bachelor's of exercise science and human biology, and I loved it.

[00:04:18.27] As soon as I switched from English to exercise science, I went from being on academic probation to being on the dean's list. And I got to take classes in the weight room, coaching techniques, programming, things like that. And I loved it. And I knew that was what I wanted to go into.

[00:04:38.63] After that, I got another internship back up at University of Portland, so working with Brad and cat there. And shortly after, Brad got a job with the Braves, and Cat went on maternity leave with her first son. And so I went from an intern to a full assistant. And it was awesome. It was such a great-- I mean, there's no way to learn coaching other than to coach.

[00:05:01.98] Like, you can't read books that are going to teach you how to coach. Like you just have to be in it. And you've got to put the time in and learn what it's like to be on the floor and to just like run eight teams through in a day and all those things that happen at that mid-major level.

[00:05:14.61] And so I really loved it. I knew I needed to go back and get a master's if I wanted to get into a full-time role, like a long term or go into any leadership, things like that. And quite frankly, I just wanted to learn more. I had a lot of questions.

[00:05:31.38] And so I chose to do a remote master's degree at California University of Pennsylvania, which I think is a common program for a lot of strength coaches. You get to have a couple certifications in that process, and it's a pretty intense but-- but quick program. It only takes a year.

[00:05:48.99] And so I did that, and I was teaching at the same time. I was coaching. I coached college volleyball for a semester, high school track and field. So I did a lot of different things to be able to pay for it and continue coaching. And that's when I found the internship for sports science at University of Utah.

[00:06:07.77] And at that time, I had never heard of sports science. I didn't know what it was. I couldn't have told you what a sports scientist does from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM every day. But I had heard of Ernie Reimer before, and I knew that he was really, really smart. And both Kat and Brad spoke really highly of him.

[00:06:28.02] And so I applied for it. And I remember in the interview, the phone interview, he said, I just want somebody that has some basic skills, some basic algorithms, some really simple R skills. And I told him, I don't know when you say R If you mean the letter or the word R. I don't know what that is.

[00:06:47.37] But I know that I did code a pretty incredible Myspace when I was in middle school, self-coded it in HTML. So that's pretty impressive beyond the resume. And I know that I'll work so hard.

[00:07:01.37] I'm an incredibly hard worker. I have a really small learning curve. I won't make the same mistake twice.

[00:07:07.65] And I'm a really good teammate. And other than that, I don't really have much else to offer you. Those are kind of my big skills.

[00:07:13.77] And so he hired me. And I got to Utah, and I remember I gave him a call and I said, I'm moving up there for this unpaid internship. Do you think you could, like, tell me, if you had to define sports science, how would you define it? And he said, oh, you'll figure it out when you get here.

[00:07:27.99] And so it was very much so like jumping into the unknown. I left a full-time secondary teaching job and a head coaching job behind and benefits and health insurance and all those things. And so my parents were a little unsure of the choice.

[00:07:43.68] But a couple weeks in at Utah, the head volleyball coach, Beth Lanier, hired me to be just volleyball sports scientist. And so that was really exciting to me. As somebody that has played volleyball for so long, I got to be this really unique piece between every part of the sport performance team.

[00:08:02.76] And so we would have these weekly sport performance meetings where it was the dietitian, the mental performance, academics, strength and conditioning, me, the whole staff, athletic training. Everybody was around the same table. We had really laid out periodization schemes and not just like practice loads, but also when were we going to do mental performance prep and skill development.

[00:08:27.87] And when were we going to do recharges in the training room? And when were we going to feed them versus have them learn to feed themselves and all of those things? And so to be able to just get thrown into a team that is operating at such a high level, I think it really taught me to think differently about what sport science is.

[00:08:44.49] And so it's a little abstract, but I really did learn sport science as problem solving. And so that can be in any area of sport. And once I learned that, it really opened up my mind into what kind of a career I could have in the field, that it didn't just have to be writing programs.

[00:09:04.47] For me, writing programs was always really difficult. The difficult part is strength and conditioning because I got a little paralysis by analysis. And so I liked that with sports science, I could solve a problem, and I could test my solution. And then I could move on to a new problem. And so that part of it was really exciting to me.

[00:09:22.32] And I got to work on so many different things. Beth was an amazing mentor. Ernie was an amazing mentor. I got to travel with the team and just be a part of some of those conversations that were things that I had no idea existed at the collegiate sport level.

[00:09:38.37] And so when I was there is when I started to think about the training of female athletes and potentially like, is there-- should we be doing things differently? When we think about how we program and the rationale of why we choose the things that we do and when we're ramping things up for athletes and when we're kind of tapering things down, are all of those strategies the same for female athletes as they are for male athletes?

[00:10:02.55] And so my contract is ending at the end of the season with Utah. And Ernie was telling me like, you have to apply for jobs. And I was like, I don't know. I just feel like I'm going to know. I mean, I know the vibes. And he was like, that's not how jobs work.

[00:10:17.66] And so the job at NC State came up, and it was a hybrid role. It was the director of sports science and assistant strength and conditioning coach. And so I felt like the missing piece at Utah was I got to work with the team in the weight room, but I wasn't the one making the programming decisions.

[00:10:33.00] And so I wanted that ownership to be able to test some of the innovations that I was creating myself, but I didn't have that role at Utah. And so the job at NC State was a really good fit. I was really lucky.

[00:10:47.80] And so I was hired by Nate Brookreson to work with women's soccer and women's volleyball there, and it was awesome. I mean, the staff that I worked with, the athletic trainers, the dietitians, the support staff, they were incredibly open-minded. And so I tried a whole different host of different training modalities and recovery ideas and pre-practice and post-practice and different interventions. And we were kind of testing things and creating them as we went along. And I think that was where I learned.

[00:11:23.62] People talk about evidence based a lot. And obviously, it's important to have scientific rationale behind everything that you do. Like it shouldn't just be willy-nilly. You should be thoughtful about why you're doing what you're doing.

[00:11:34.33] But when we're thinking about innovation, like on that cutting edge, when you're doing things that no one's done before, you have to be able to pull evidence from different areas that might not be-- you might not find it in the strength and conditioning textbook, because no one's ever done it before. And so I felt really lucky to be with these staff that I felt like thought similar to me.

[00:11:53.23] And like, here's this problem. We have an athlete with an injury or trying to prevent something. Or we're coming back, and we don't have.

[00:12:01.11] There's not one single perfectly applicable study that's been done before in this exact scenario. But what can we pull from all these different areas to build this kind of foundation of scientific rationale, to develop something that's brand new? And that was really my experience at NC State.

[00:12:17.47] And it was also I moved there, I think, four months before COVID happened. And so navigating teams through COVID and athletes through COVID and training outside, building weight rooms essentially on the turf field so that we could train outside and keep our athletes safe and all of those things. It was such a good experience in learning how to test different innovations and interventions.

[00:12:42.55] And so I got to a point there where I felt like my questions had kind of outpaced my skills. And I could only teach myself so much. And that's when I got an email.

[00:12:52.45] I was looking into some European PhD programs where I could stay coaching and kind of do it remotely. And I got an email from Dr. Abby Smith Ryan at Chapel Hill one day. And so a couple months down the road, she ended up offering me the chance to be her student. And that's why I left and came to UNC Chapel Hill.

[00:13:08.80] And so it's interesting. I never thought that I would be in grad school. I didn't think that a PhD was ever going to be my reality. I didn't think I'd ever be looking for jobs in academia to be an assistant professor.

[00:13:22.44] But the resources here that she's provided me with and being able to pair those with the relationships that I have in the field and the questions that I have from my time as a coach, I think has really-- it's been incredible. It's expanded my ability even more so to answer meaningful questions for practitioners that help them do their jobs better.

[00:13:47.16] I mean, we're at a time in the history of our field where it's important that we have coaches as our professors. It's important that we have practitioners that understand what we know and do in the strength and conditioning profession to teach us some of these areas, because for a lot of time-- and I know a lot of coaches can connect with this-- many of our professors didn't have strength and conditioning backgrounds. They came out of traditional biology or exercise physiology programs, maybe on the clinical exercise side of things, and maybe didn't have as relatable points to educate us in strength and conditioning.

[00:14:29.11] So for a long time, strength and conditioning was largely taught as an applied discipline, that you took what you could from your academics, and you went out and got internships, done exactly what you've done. You've gone really anywhere and everywhere to get applied sports science experience, strength and conditioning experience. It pulls you into high-level physiology research. You've really gone all-in on all these areas, which is really impressive.

[00:15:00.63] One thing that jumps out to me is that you changed majors. You went from an English major to biology to exercise physiology, and now you're looking at your PhD. And one thing you said about you gave up a full-time job with medical benefits, and your parents had some questions for you at that time about where your life was headed.

[00:15:27.15] Today, kids are getting exposed to careers at an earlier age. They have to. If you want to be a physical therapist, you have to decide that relatively early. If you want to be a strength and conditioning coach when CASCE accreditation happens.

[00:15:41.00] Getting into those programs at the right time in your academic journey can save you years of studying so you're not having to go back to school late to get the degree you need to get the certification you want. What advice do you have for students, even young students-- middle school, high school? Because careers are getting more competitive. Deciding on the path you want to go-- I think some students are getting-- feeling more pressure to decide this in high school or before their college-age years.

[00:16:18.71] Maybe we benefited from being able to be a college athlete and be like, oh, strength, and conditioning is cool. Let's go do that. It would have been harder to get into the profession now if we got a later start. What advice do you have for students today?

[00:16:32.83] Yeah, that's such a good question. I actually gave a talk back at my high school in Oregon a few months ago, kind of talking about my path and what it looked like. I would say that I have a non-traditional path. I also skipped over I worked for like a coffee company for like three years in between undergrad and my master's degree, and I was a traveling culture coach, essentially for Dutch Bros. I've done it all.

[00:17:00.58] I think when I was younger, I thought I had to have a 5 to 10-year plan. I thought that, when you're in undergrad, it does feel like there's this pressure of everybody else knows what the rest of their life looks like, whether that's like them going to law school or med school or going into some corporate job. And I didn't feel like I had that.

[00:17:19.36] I really, really struggled with having to retire from volleyball. I had to get a second knee surgery after my senior year, and I had a hard time with it. And I had to quite frankly, like walk away from sports for a little bit just to figure out, who am I without volleyball? And who do I want to be? Excuse me.

[00:17:38.20] And so I think that it feels like there's this pressure that you have to know. And I see it with my undergrads that I teach here at UNC where they have these really big internships, and they feel these pressure to get these internships during their summer as a sophomore. And when I was a sophomore, I would like coach a couple volleyball camps in the summer, and then I would just drive around and camp out of a tent in the back of my car and play sand volleyball all summer. And so I do think that I was really privileged to be a collegiate athlete in so many different facets. But I also think that it's-- like it's OK to go back.

[00:18:16.68] Now I'm in my early to mid 30s, and I'm a college student. And even like leaving a full-time job, being-- getting to be like the first woman that said director of sports science in the NCAA and leaving that to be like just a grad student was, as much as I'm embarrassed to admit, it was a little bit of a mental shift for me of like, no, there's a reason that you're doing this. And this is meaningful, and it's something that you need to do. And it's the right choice for you.

[00:18:45.24] So, like I do think that school is always there. Like grad school is always there. You can always go back.

[00:18:53.80] One of the biggest pieces of advice that I feel like was helpful for me in my career was that you can-- if you're good enough at something, somebody will pay you to do it. So there might not be a job out there that is what you want to do with the description that you want. That's OK. You can go in, and you can sell it. And I've done that before.

[00:19:13.51] In my first interview with NC State, Nate Parkerson asked me, what's your dream job? And I like, not really this one. And like, that's such that's such a hot take to say. I was like a 20-- I don't know-- maybe 24, 25-year-old that is getting this interview simply because like my references called and convinced him to give me an interview and then to say like, this isn't my dream job.

[00:19:34.84] But let me tell you how I would change this job to be my dream job. And so to his credit, six weeks later, he called-- called back, and he offered me my dream job description.

[00:19:46.42] And so, there's more flexibility now in these jobs than there ever has been. There's more opportunity now than there ever has been, whether it's in academia or college athletics or in industry, in companies, in training facilities. It really is such an open book.

[00:20:06.85] I think getting as much experience in so many different things as you can is valuable because in every experience, there's something to learn, whether the thing that you're learning is, oh, this is incredible. I want to learn more about it, or this is not what I want to do at all. It's valuable across the board. And so just staying open-minded, developing those relationships.

[00:20:27.85] I think another thing that Brad always used to tell me is good things happen to good people like you. Go in whatever your job is, you work hard. You do a good job, and opportunity is going to follow. And so I think really keeping your mind open of what is it that you want to do all day.

[00:20:41.87] Is there someone in that role somewhere, and reaching out and saying, like, what would you do differently about your path? What would you do the same or operation write your own job description. I think that that's important for us to know too, that you can do whatever you want to do. You just got to go sell it.

[00:21:02.32] No, I love that. I love that you emphasized the flexibility in our roles today, and that-- I mean, we say it all the time. We see it out there. Not all assistant strength and conditioning coach roles are the same. Not all sports scientists are the same. Not all professor positions or researcher positions are the same.

[00:21:21.59] And so when you go into an environment, there often is flexibility to play to your strengths or play to a candidate's strengths. And that's why it's really important to showcase your strengths during an interview process and coming in the door. Another thing, speaking to your background-- but a lot of coaches do this-- leveraging education for opportunity.

[00:21:48.30] Grad school yields a lot of coaching opportunities. Traditionally, you think about graduate assistant coaching positions leading to assistant coach roles. You gave some really good advice that you got from mentors along the way.

[00:22:03.61] And I think back to college when a professor said, hey, you do well enough your first four years. You won't have to pay for your next two or your next four or whatever it is. And that always stuck with me. And so having good mentors, obviously something you've done well, people that share advice with you or things that maybe put you at ease.

[00:22:21.64] But going back and summarizing what you said, having a game plan, maybe a two or four-year plan to explore career development at various stages. That's important.

[00:22:40.47] One thing that comes through, it's harder to chase a moving target. So you went all-in on coaching until you didn't want to anymore, and you went all in on sports science. And now you're all in on research. And there's something to say for that of going all-in, giving it your best effort, and then being critical and asking questions along the way.

[00:23:05.23] OK, I've taken this. What do I go to next? What's the next step in my journey? And I think it's really cool that you've done so many different things.

[00:23:15.57] But I want to ask you about your research, what you're doing. I know this is crunch time, dissertation time for you, and the lab you're working in is huge in female physiology. What projects are you working on? What are some of the things that you have going on?

[00:23:33.21] Yeah, it's a good question. I think also just really quickly to your earlier point, I think that sometimes, we get-- I used to be really worried that what if this choice I make isn't the right one?

[00:23:46.60] Like at a couple points, I had multiple job offers because when you have to go into the field, that's what you have to do. And it's terrible. I hate being on the job market. I hope I never have to do it again.

[00:23:58.74] But I think it was my mom that told me whatever choice you make is the right one because it's the one you made, and you don't have to do something forever. You can work a job for one year or for six months, right? But getting in there, really giving it your all, and then being able to identify, is this something that I want to do? Do I want to keep doing this? How do I want this to evolve?

[00:24:20.77] I think that was really helpful for me to make a switch to that kind of mindset when it comes to my career rather than thinking I had to have it all planned out for the next 10 years at every point and every move. And I think goals are important, obviously. But just for me and how I work, it really was transitioning to more of putting my all in, growing where I'm at as much as I can, and then when it's time to move on, I'll know. And whatever that opportunity is, I'll just know. And so I think it is really having some confidence in yourself and believing in yourself, believing in your intangibles.

[00:24:56.77] I know that I'm a hard worker, and I know that I'm a good teammate. And I know that I'm such a fast learner. And those three things have been true for me through my entire career. Am I going to get it right every single time? No, but am I going to maybe get it right this second time? Hopefully.

[00:25:14.40] And so having that confidence in yourself, I think is really, really critical, especially for times when you have then realized this is not where I want to be, or this is not what I want to do. But I don't have the next opportunity yet. So I appreciate you being able to synthesize that down. That's really helpful.

[00:25:31.95] In terms of the work that we're doing now, so I'm in the applied physiology lab with Abby Smith-Ryan, and I wanted to make sure that when I came to my PhD, I knew what college athletics had for me. I had been in that field for some years at that point. I didn't know what research had for me. I had no skills and no experience when I started here, which is always a funny story looking back on it now.

[00:25:59.19] I didn't know the difference between a resume and a CV, and at that point, it didn't matter because they were not different for me. That's just how little experience I had. And so getting to be in here has been amazing.

[00:26:11.05] So we have a couple big research lines that Dr. Smith-Ryan has gotten funding for and pursued a lot of research studies in. We have one in the menopause transition-- so looking at different metabolic, nutrition, physical activity, exercise outcomes, and interventions for women as they go through the menopause transition. That's been a really fascinating line of research to be involved with. It's something that happens to 51% of our population, but we don't really talk about it a lot. And so getting to be a part of some of those research studies and some of those publications has been really, really fulfilling.

[00:26:48.39] We also have quite a bit of work looking at different exercise recovery, again, metabolic outcomes across the menstrual cycle and on different hormonal contraceptives-- so understanding does the change in menstrual phases or the influence of exogenous hormones from hormonal contraceptives. Do those things influence our sport performance, our perceived sport performance or our perceived effort, our recovery capacities, mostly in recreationally active general population women? Which has been some really fascinating studies that I've been a part of. And then the last bit is kind of what I've focused most of my dissertation on, which is looking in elite athletes-- so looking at different elements of the influence of training load, physiological recovery, body composition, different nutrition outcomes, subjective wellness-- so kind of understanding how the objective recovery and the subjective wellness come together.

[00:27:48.72] One of the big outcomes of my dissertation has been looking at predicting athlete availability. So availability is deceptively simple. It's just, is the athlete available to play in practices and in games? And it's so much more complex than I think that we realize it is. A lot of people just think of injury. If you're injured, you're unavailable.

[00:28:11.80] But really, as soon as one player's kind of load in practice goes down, whether it's for monitoring, for academic, for mental health, for so many different reasons, the loads of all the other players go up, and that's true in practice and in games. And so availability is one of the strongest predictors of winning a single game at the end-of-season standing of an individual being able to reach their performance goals.

[00:28:36.82] And so a better understanding of female athlete availability was really interesting to me because in the literature, some of the biggest predictor of unavailability is the female sex. And as a strength coach, that's not helpful to me. I can't change my programming based on that.

[00:28:54.10] And so a big part of my dissertation has been dedicated to tracking these modifiable metrics, understanding changes in body composition, again, training, load, recovery, wellness, and force plate testing, some different-- like key performance indicator testing. How do all of these things come together to be able to influence athlete availability in elite female athletes?

[00:29:18.55] And what can we tell strength coaches? Like, what should they be focusing on in preseason, during the season? How can we help them keep their athletes more available?

[00:29:29.13] So on this topic-- and I know some of this is ahead of print right now in terms of the research that's being done-- but related to the menstrual cycle, related to training readiness, athlete availability. Do you see this as more of a day-to-day monitoring approach? What are some of the takeaways that you think you'll be able to tell strength coaches related to this topic as a result of your research?

[00:29:55.11] Yeah, that's a good question. I think availability is unique because it balances like that long-term athlete development with that short-term athlete readiness. Like we want to load them. We want to make them more resilient and more robust, but we need to keep them fresh.

[00:30:10.00] So how do we balance those two together? And I think that really is kind of, in my opinion, one of the biggest conundrums of strength and conditioning.

[00:30:18.60] I think what's interesting, some of the findings that I've been able to understand through it is it's really quite team specific. So when I compare these predictors across teams, they're not really the same. So for instance, our lacrosse team or the lacrosse team in the sample, no force plate variables were predictive of availability.

[00:30:41.05] So that doesn't mean that force plate testing is a waste of time. But it means that how we're interpreting some of the changes in those variables and what we're using to make decisions off of it's going to be different for lacrosse than it is for a soccer team or for a basketball team.

[00:30:58.11] One of the other interesting findings is body composition has kind of come out as a really big predictor. So understanding that the capacity to gain muscle mass or bone density across the season is kind of-- it's indicative of a recovered physiological state. So it means that you're properly balancing that loading aspect and the recovery aspect with nutrition, with sleep, things like that. Because if an athlete is able to gain muscle mass from beginning of season to end of season, that would indicate that we kind of properly balanced those two factors.

[00:31:31.77] One of the other things that's interesting with more of the field-based teams is the importance of high-speed exposure. So for some teams, athletes-- faster athletes are at risk of injury, particularly early in the season. So really being conscious of how we're onboarding the loads of those athletes in that first month of the season, especially when it's sports that have a big amount of off-season right before they start.

[00:31:57.37] So like basketball, they start in October, November, but they get August and September to be able to train on campus. Whereas you look at soccer and they're off campus all summer, and they only get two weeks before they start their season to practice. So really thinking about, how does this annual plan factor into some of the higher-risk athletes? And faster athletes can be at a higher risk of injury, particularly early in the season.

[00:32:25.25] But on the other side of that, high-speed exposure during the week and during the season has also shown to be really helpful for keeping athletes available. So it's kind of understanding the nuance in some of these variables between teams. And then also part of it is understanding what does the periodization structure look like for that team when I'm tracking them during the season, so that I can properly contextualize some of the results.

[00:32:54.07] When you're looking at this topic-- and I thought it was interesting how you presented it as a conundrum of how we're loading athletes, but we expect them to be recovered. On this topic of female physiology, there's obviously developmental milestones that are very important. Do you feel like it's more the developmental milestones after puberty when these things start taking effect, or is it more of a talent ID thing? Are there differences between elite athletes and the rest of us, for example?

[00:33:32.65] That's a really good question. I think in terms of puberty, there is research to suggest that elite athletes or adolescent female athletes with higher training loads do have a different pubertal development and timeline than their non-athletic counterparts.

[00:33:50.63] So on average, female athletes start their periods about two years later than non-athletes. So delayed menarche is what we call it. = I don't think we know everything there is to know about it. We know that female athletes also tend to have higher rates of menstrual dysfunction, which is from low energy availability.

[00:34:14.44] But I think at like a high scale, when we're thinking about balancing that loading and those recovery windows, I do think that it is something that applies to general population, to younger athletes, to older athletes. I think that when you get at the more elite level, as athletes get closer to their kind of athletic ceiling, you can only develop so much.

[00:34:35.98] Like we talk about when you're training an athlete, like in the weight room, a basic strength program is going to improve the power and the speed of most athletes that just have a young training age. It's not until they've kind of really adapted that you need to start tweaking and doing these really kind of finely tuned programming. It's like if you're working with high school athletes, they're mostly going to adapt to whatever you put in front of them, versus when athletes are again getting closer and closer to their ceiling of how much they can adapt. Those are the things that really small fine tuning adjustments are going to make the difference between a gold and a silver medal.

[00:35:14.83] And I think that that's also the challenge, too. When you're working at the collegiate level, you do have this span of athletes. You have some freshmen coming in that have never been in the weight room before. And then you get these fifth and sixth-year seniors that have been training for a long time. At a high level, maybe they play on a national team.

[00:35:35.11] Their training age is much higher. Kind of being able to understand what sort of tweaks need to be made in these different populations. But I do think that considering training age will impact the influence of some of these factors, for sure.

[00:35:51.91] Now, it's interesting to consider. And we're always weighing all these different variables. I mean, I come from a background of coaching where I didn't work with female athletes for 15 or 20 years of my career. And I think of-- there's a lot of coaches in this profession.

[00:36:06.47] Maybe you work in college football. Maybe you work in men's basketball or another sport where we're just not as fresh on these topics, and there's so much growth in these areas as well. If you have advice for the coaching world as a whole related to just the current growth of research and what's important around this topic of female physiology, bringing it to relevance in today's world, what would you say?

[00:36:39.13] Yeah, I think the first thing is a bit of a disclaimer of like, nobody is an expert. Nobody gets trained. Whether you have a menstrual cycle or you don't have a menstrual cycle, nobody is trained about how it affects your training, your recovery, your energy levels.

[00:36:59.48] When I was a collegiate athlete, I remember there would be days that I would wake up, and I look in the mirror. And I'd be like, it looks like I gained 15 pounds overnight, and I did everything right. And I'm exhausted.

[00:37:09.50] Like, I went to bed on time, and I ate my protein. And I did all my vitamins, and I drank my water. I did everything I was supposed to, and I feel like garbage. I feel so bad.

[00:37:22.57] And I didn't know at the time that those sort of things were related to my menstrual cycle because nobody's taught. And so I think the potential, like insecurity or feeling like you should know, but you don't. I just don't think that that's a valuable source of our time to feel like you should know more because nobody's really taught about it.

[00:37:48.22] There are more resources now than there have been in the past. And I think that it's been gaining momentum in understanding it, learning more about it, being curious about it. That's, I think, where you start.

[00:38:03.40] Yeah, I think that the struggle sometimes is that people feel like they should know, but they don't. And then they don't want to ask questions about it because of that battle of like, well, I should know. So then if I ask this question, it's going to show that I don't know. That's not a concern, really. That's not on anyone's mind. Nobody knows.

[00:38:21.62] So much of what I've learned, I've had to I've just had to go teach myself. And that's why when I met Dr. Smith-Ryan, somebody that is a leading researcher in this field, I jumped at the chance to be her student and to be able to not only learn more about it, but then also generate knowledge about it. So to publish research on it, to help coaches understand it more, to translate it, it's something really important.

[00:38:46.87] We're giving a talk at the NSCA national conference to understand, how do we combine coaching and these research fields together for the benefit of our female athletes? Does every female athlete need to train according to her menstrual cycle? I don't think that they do. I think that it can be applicable, but in certain settings and at certain populations, and there's so much nuance to it. Kind of understanding the nuances and being really curious about it is the most important thing.

[00:39:16.15] So in terms of any advice for the coaching world, I don't think there's anything that the entire coaching world necessarily needs to hear from me. But just being really curious and being transparent about it, I think is really important. And that's what's going to help drive us along.

[00:39:32.11] I mean, just like everything else, it depends. There's no absolutes in this profession. And that's why we have to have quality professionals that can weigh the different variables and factors that are various situations, training levels, developmental stages, all of these different things. Incredible program at UNC, both on the strength and conditioning side and on the research side. It's a great campus, a great school if you ever get the chance to go visit out there and see what's going on.

[00:40:04.45] Sam, really? We tackled some of the big topics today. I know for a lot of students, the professional path and figuring out where our careers are headed, that's an area of stress for a lot of coaches. Female physiology, menstrual cycle-- these aren't topics that, as a society, we typically talk about a whole lot.

[00:40:29.27] So really nice job being comfortable coming on here and sharing with the coaching world what you're working on. What's the best way if someone wants to reach out and ask you some more questions?

[00:40:41.05] Yeah, my Instagram and Twitter are @sammoorestrong, s-a-m-m-o-o-r-e strong. And you can shoot me a DM on there. My website is mooresportscience.com. So I have most of our publications that we've produced since I've been here in the lab and some podcasts and things like that. And then my email is on there as well to get in touch with me.

[00:41:08.77] Awesome. We will include those in the show notes for everyone. Sam, thanks again for being with us. To all our listeners, thanks for tuning in, and special thanks to Sorinex exercise equipment. We appreciate their support.

[00:41:21.40] My name is Autumn Lockwood, and you just listened to an episode of The NSCA Coaching Podcast. And if you'd like to get involved in any sort of way for a volunteer opportunity, make sure you head to nsca.com, and you'll be able to find a list of them to get involved.

[00:41:38.74] This was the NSCA's Coaching Podcast. The National Strength and Conditioning Association was founded in 1978 by strength and conditioning coaches to share information, resources, and help advance the profession. Serving coaches for over 40 years, the NSCA is the trusted source for strength and conditioning professionals. Be sure to join us next time.

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