Female Athletes

Editor's note: Even sans the note it should be obvious that today's is a guest post. Thanks to Samantha Wheeler, our topic is one seldom covered on this blog: sports fashion. Enjoy!—Rob

For most of its brief history, women's golf clothing has been notoriously uncomfortable, not user-friendly and detrimental to the performance of women. Unlike men's golf clothes which provided some performance enhancements, ladies of the game have suffered the pain of restrictive and non-expressive golf garments.

With the massive construction of golf clubs, came the emergence of stringent clothing restrictions. Victorian ladies were required to play in high-necked, long-sleeved blouses, bowler hats, full-length skirts, and button shoes. As you can imagine, none of these clothes provided any physical benefits to the female player. It would be like playing golf in a straight jacket.

The breathable and light-weight materials seen on the links today were over a century away from being developed. Hours of playing golf in the heat with a cotton shirt and wool blazer pushed women away from the sport. Golf is a difficult sport as it is, the last thing players need are clothes that hinder their performance even more.



Women players had to live with the clothing handicap for over sixty years before a glimpse of hope emerged in the sixties. The shorter and looser skirt was taken from tennis and put on the golf courses. Women were now provided the mobility and comfort they needed to focus on their game. This is what powered the comeback of women in golf.



Not everything was perfect for the women golfer. Clothing may have increased the overall performance of women on the links but many of the styles remained masculine. Only serious female golfers looked beyond the fashionable drawbacks of golf to prove themselves with their success and not their looks. However, this mentality was not enough to put the 13 player LPGA founded in 1950 on the map.



Only in the 90s did Nike and adidas bring top quality clothing to the female golf market to provide women a benefit from wearing their clothing. With technologies such as ClimaLite and Dri-FIT, women were free to focus entirely on their game and not their clothing. Nike and adidas' successes could be attributed to pairing their clothing with talented women who would prove themselves on the course with their ability rather than their beauty. Today, the LPGA's powerhouse athletes like Michelle Wie and Amanda Blumenhest can in part be credited to this overdue disregard for standards of feminine beauty that are incongruous with an athletic lifestyle.

Samantha Wheeler
Freelance Writer, Lija Style
www.lijastyle.com

Stuntwomen make frequent appearances here, with good reason for they embody what this blog is about.

And in that spirit we continue. Today our star is Jessie Graff—another female athlete (former pole-vault champion) making a home for her athletic skills in Hollywood:

Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in all federally-funded education programs, and athletics programs signally, was enacted 28 38 years ago today. Never without its naysayers, Title IX has despite them been an unmitigated success. Though not the final answer to gender equality in sports—something that can't be won by mere edict—Title IX opened a path to opportunities previously denied to athletic girls.

Nothing serves better to get across the transcendent difference opportunity makes than a real-life success story. And to that end, today I offer one furnished by the California Women's Law Center:

I harp on this, some might say, too much. But it is important—very important—that young athletic females start strength training early on (properly supervised, of course). Strength training builds not only stronger, more athletic bodies but bodies less susceptible to injury. These benefits can be reaped at any age, naturally, but they are amplified when young girls prepare their bodies early for the rigors of athletic competition. In so doing, they make a lasting, bounteous difference in their athletic careers, and their lives.

Cortney, a high-school athlete who trains at Philippi Sports Institute, is on the right track. Thanks to an early start and hard work, she has already progressed remarkably, and is well on her way to being a strong (an understatement), healthy athlete. A 315-lb trap-bar deadlift and you're only in high school—way to go, Cortney!

You could have knocked me over with a feather when I learned that local television news hardly covers women's athletics.

But of course I jest. This I already knew—sans 20-year study and all.

I must confess, however, to being caught unawares by one conclusion:

"The peak was in 1999," said [Cheryl Cooky, assistant professor of health and kinesiology and women's studies at Purdue University]. "The local affiliates covered almost nine percent and that's gone down now to 1.6 percent in 2009."

I was not expecting a trend so steep in the wrong direction; a little disheartening to say the least.

The benefits women—female athletes in particular—reap from strength training are well-established. A new study shows, however, that drinking milk after lifting weights enhances and accelerates them.

Thus, as if it needed confirmation, we see now that Dara Torres knew what she was talking about when she unveiled her first Milk Mustache ad: