How OhmBody Is Helping Me Feel My Best On & Off The Field
This article was written by guest contributor and OhmBody's Brand Partner, Jordyn Bloomer - the goalkeeper for Racing Louisville of the National Women's Soccer League.
As a professional soccer player, our job is to perform at our best every single day. It truly is a 24/7 type of job because everything we do before and after a training session is all done through the lens of “How can I be my best today?” and “How can I be my best tomorrow?” The National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) season lasts from roughly mid January to potentially the championship game in late-November, so in order to stay healthy and primed to train and play games throughout those nine months, discipline in nutrition and recovery modalities are crucial.
Finding My Recovery Groove
I’m in my fifth season now as a pro, but it’s taken awhile for me to establish a recovery routine. As I’ve grown into my career, I’ve been able to explore different recovery modalities and find the mix that works best for me and my body. For me to perform at my best, I try to maintain a weekly massage schedule and one gym session that is dedicated entirely to mobility and stretching. In addition, I’ll utilize other recovery modalities like infrared light beds to reduce inflammation and compression boots to help flush my muscles whenever I feel like my body is in need of a little extra care. While these modalities address my physical well-being, I also need to make sure that I’m able to take care of my mental and emotional recovery. For me personally, that work-life balance is crucial. If I only treat my body’s physical needs, I’ll end up burning out anyways if I don’t refill my mental and emotional side. Those recovery activities are the fun ones though because they fill up the soul. I typically recharge mentally and emotionally by spending time with friends, sitting at a coffee shop reading a book with a cappuccino, or going on an easy walk around a park. While they might not sound like traditional recovery modalities, they are just as important as the ones that target muscles and inflammation.
Menstruation and Athletic Performance
As female athletes, however, there’s a monthly change that occurs within our bodies that can directly impact my performance that these typical recovery modalities and routines haven’t been able to help me with, and quite frankly, has been ignored for far too long. There are a lot of resources that are now being dedicated to the research of female athletes, their menstrual cycles, and the implications it has on performance (finally!), but it is still in the early stages. There is a decent amount of research and information about the best ways to fuel your body during your cycle to help it continue to perform at its peak, but there are very few recovery devices that exist to directly target period symptoms. Getting introduced to OhmBody was the first time anyone had brought a device to my attention that was specifically designed to help me during my period.
*Disclaimer* While I did not study biomechanics/biology/physiology/ kinesiology or any other of the “-ology” fields, I am a little bit of a self proclaimed recreational science nerd. Maybe it comes with the job, but I think learning about the human body is really cool - especially when it comes to sport science related topics. As an athlete, I’ve come to learn so much about my body and the way it reacts and responds to different stimuli, both internal and external, by talking to the people around me who did actually study these fields and I find it so interesting to learn about. So naturally when I started to learn about the research from OhmBody on the impact of targeting your nervous system as a recovery modality for your period I was very intrigued.
OhmBody targets your nervous system, but more specifically your vagus nerve and trigeminal nerve, to help your body reset back to its baseline. During our periods, our bodies undergo a stress that may or may not be noticeable physically or mentally. For me personally, I notice both. In the week leading up to my period I feel pretty severe levels of fatigue and brain fog, with some occasional cramping as well during the first day or two. As a professional athlete, mental fatigue and physical pains are less than ideal. In my position specifically - I’m a goalkeeper - means I have the opposing team shooting a ball very fast and very hard at me and I need to be able to see it and react to it all within a split second. Any delay in my ability to process and react to the ball could result in me getting scored on (which is not ideal). In all honesty though, I was skeptical when I was told that a small stim unit targeting two nerve endings near my ear was supposed to help these symptoms go away. I’ve used stim units before for muscles but never to target my nervous system, so this was a first for me. Let’s just say I’m glad a little uncertainty didn’t stop me from trying it. OhmBody has allowed me to show up and be my best on days where I previously would’ve been fighting against my body and brain to perform at its best. I’m able to use my OhmBody unit without interruption to my usual routine. I typically use it for a couple hours in the morning when I first wake up or a couple hours in the afternoon when I’m done with my training session. It’s been an easy addition to my recovery routine compared to other modalities. I don’t need to change my day’s plan to reset my nervous system - I can essentially recover whenever and wherever.
OhmBody & Emerging Options for Female Athletes
In a career field that is innately finite, I want to be able to capitalize on every training session I have available to me. Thankfully OhmBody allows me to do that, regardless of what time of the month it is. Athletes are told a million times about the importance of recovery, refueling, sleep, and taking care of themselves in order to perform their best repeatedly. While that is not wrong information, I think it’s just a bit of an incomplete list for female athletes specifically. Where are the recovery modalities for our periods? I feel fortunate to have learned about OhmBody and their research because I think it’s a field that has so much potential to not only help women in general, but to further propel women’s sports by helping female athletes mitigate the symptoms and effects of their cycle. As resources continue to be directed at female athlete specific research, I’m excited about the future of women’s sports that will emerge because of this increased attention and specialized research that will hopefully allow women to maximize their potential and performance in ways that haven’t yet been possible.
