Let’s Get Talking – (Athletic Performance and the Menstrual Cycle)

This educational animation, titled “Let’s Get Talking”, was commissioned by the Performance Pathways team at UK Sport, the English Institute of Sport (now the UK Sports Institute), and Sport Wales. It helps coaches and athletic support staff open honest conversations with young athletes about menstruation, so they can better understand and support what’s happening in an athlete’s body.

The aim was to move past silence and stigma. The animation helps coaches and young athletes understand the menstrual cycle as a repeating pattern, including the moments when training might be especially productive and motivation and focus higher, and it makes space for the real, embodied impacts of menstruation, both positive and negative. The goal throughout was to demystify the cycle and make it a normal, supportable part of training and wellbeing rather than something unspoken.

To carry a sensitive subject lightly, I used a limited, cheerful colour palette, stylised and diverse characters, and a deliberate mix of show and tell. Charts help explain the cycle as a pattern, while the characters keep the focus on lived experience. The result is warm and informative rather than clinical, which is the balance I aim for across my animation work with researchers and organisations.

The film was made with a team of leading experts in female athlete health, including Dr Emma Ross, and it is published as an official resource on the UK Sports Institute’s website, where I’m credited alongside the expert contributors Emma Ross, Natalie Brown, Eleeshia Bauwise and Ben Holliss, with support from UK Sport, Sport England, Sport Wales, the Welsh Institute of Performance Science, the Sports Institute for Northern Ireland, the SportScotland Institute of Sport, and The Well HQ. It sits within a growing national focus on female athlete health, an area UK sporting bodies have continued to invest in since.

If you’re a researcher or organisation working on women’s health, sport and wellbeing, or any subject that deserves to be talked about openly, and you’d like to bring it to life through animation, I’d love to hear from you. Get in touch.