Dr. Amy Divaraniya is looking to elevate female athletics through her groundbreaking research.
Divaraniya, who is a biomedical scientist and a runner as well, is the founder and CEO of Oova, which gives women the tools to monitor their hormones while on their cycle. Divaraniya and her company are using their groundbreaking research to dive deeper into athlete performance, with the hopes of allowing female athletes to optimize their performance.
Divaraniya is training for the upcoming New York City Marathon later on this fall, and her research has given her a deeper understanding to the ebbs and flows of her training, which gives her insight to the obstacles female runners may endure in their seasons of training.
She was a recent guest on the Lactic Acid Podcast. Here’s a piece of the conversation that was had.
Dom: You have a business that you started called Oova. Take me through the origins of that and what led you to to really start this and the impact that you wanted to make when you originated this.
Amy: When I was at the end of my PhD, my husband and I started trying to have a baby. What the world or the powers that be did not prepare me for was kind of the long and heartbreaking journey that we were about to embark on trying to become parents. So I always struggled with irregular cycles, and I realized very quickly that all the tools that were available for women who were trying to get pregnant were really designed for women who had a perfect 28 day cycle. And that wasn’t me. My body wasn’t following a cycle. It was just kind of all over the place, and I realized a piece of information missing was really understanding my hormone levels, because these signs that I was tracking were all symptoms of a hormonal behavior. And if I could understand the root cause, which is the hormone pattern, I could actually figure out what’s going on with my cycle.
And I realized there was no tool there to provide women with that data, so I set out to build it. I believe women deserve access to that information. They needed the actual numerical values to truly be able to advocate for themselves. And so that’s really where the foundation for Oova came.
Dom: How is what you do and the research and the information that you’ve provided for everybody – how will that help female athletes and their performance, but also to take better care of themselves as they go through their careers?
Amy: So I’ve had this hypothesis that when it comes to female athletes, women are often put into similar training programs as men, and they’re quite often treated as smaller men. But we’re not that. I mean, like, aside from the obvious facts, the point is that women do cycle. And why is it called a cycle? It’s because our hormones are behaving in a predicted pattern that lead to certain physiological changes.
I’m not an elite athlete by any means. I love to work out just for my own sanity, but I had this bucket list item to become to run the New York City Marathon. So not being a runner, I am training for the marathon. And I noticed very quickly, even though my cycle is still very irregular, there are certain weeks at a time where my long run feels amazing. I could go another five miles, if I needed to, after I’m done with my long run for the week. Other weeks, I’m just like, holy cow, how do I get past mile four? Right? So it’s and then realizing, the more I’m watching my cycle, I am performing differently based on where I am in my cycle. What we’re trying to do is start to take that apart. What is it about a woman’s cycle that’s enabling her to perform better, and can we do anything to optimize not only her actual performance during the competition, but also during the training program, so she can build up the endurance to be able to kind of push through during the competition. Because what you can’t really, or you shouldn’t really, override your cycle to succumb to what your lifestyle is.
Dom: Does everything take into account the mental struggle, and how do you overcome that so you can optimize the best performance dealing with what you’re dealing with?
Amy: I think the reason that the mental part really becomes an issue is when there’s so many unknowns. The moment you start peeling that onion and shedding light on what’s actually happening underneath, not only do you get control over the situation, but now you’re actually able to make informed decisions on what’s going on. So I think the mental component really starts to take a toll on you when you realize the performance isn’t where it should be or where it could be, but you don’t know why. But now, if you have a reason, all of a sudden, you’re able to take the way that you’re thinking, the way that you’re training and the way you’re functioning all into account based on your hormonal patterns, and it all makes sense. So you’re able to control that a bit more.
Dom: Have you worked with any athletes?
Amy: We have a lot that have been using the platform. I can’t disclose due to HIPAA, but we are working with a lot of other organizations that are actually teasing apart the various aspects of female athletics, because the hormones that play such a big role because they’re the core.
Dom: What are ways athletes can optimize their performance through hormone monitoring?
Amy: It’s so critical to cycle think your workouts to your hormone patterns, because when you think about these female athletes, how many times do we hear about an ACL being torn, or pulling a muscle, which could have very well been avoided if you knew where you were in your cycle.
The full conversation can be found anywhere that you listen to podcasts.
