Being a young active female athlete, there is a chance that you are may be subjected to having low energy availability, whats more the chances are that you will be unaware of the impact it can have on your performance in training.
Looking from the outside-in on the sporting world, we tend to just get small glimpses and in doing so see fit, elite, strong athletes that we in turn perceive to be the obvious ideal body types for sport.
Whilst having a lower body fat percentage is a great advantage on athletic performance in sports like swimming and endurance running, beneficial to increased jump height and improved velocity etc, it does not necessarily tell the whole story.
I can guarantee from personal experience both as an athlete and in training athletes, the current FAD Diet or latest training routine used to chase down the “perfect body’, in many cases will have impacts you are unaware of.
So with an open mind what we are trying to say is that if an athlete has body dissatisfaction, eating less food, and differentiation in their body weight, we are opening the door to “LEA” (Low Energy Availability).
LEA also occurs in circumstances such as periods of increased training volume, back-to-back competitions and games, or when an athlete in a consistent state of high energy expenditure, such as rowing, swimming and triathlons.
