A Real Triple-Threat: Eating Disorders, Reproductive Health, and Overtraining in CrossFit

Published february 2022

"According to 18-year-old Tessa Marquette, the post-workout chats in her friend group get pretty intense.  Marquette, a two-time CrossFit Games teen athlete, was spending a muggy Tennessee week in June training with other Comptrain athletes when the conversation turned to the possibility of motherhood in the future. It was no secret to Marquette and her friends that often women in elite sports often lose their menstrual cycles and experience hormonal imbalances during their most competitive years. But as the first generation of women to grow up with CrossFit - Marquette has been a regular in her local affiliate since the age of twelve - there is uncertainty when it comes to the effects that high-level CrossFit training may have on these girls’ futures. To Marquette and her top-level training partners, this was very concerning, and raises many questions - is this problem as prevalent in CrossFit as it is in cross country or dance? How does social media play into it? How can the community fix the issue before it becomes a bigger problem? Are other girls wondering the same things?

“We all know being an elite athlete means you have to make sacrifices, but does a future of having a family have to be one of those?” Marquette questioned.

Though competitive CrossFit hasn’t been around long enough to produce evidence one way or another, there’s no denying the existence of the “Female Athlete Triad” in other competitive sports. According to the National Eating Disorder Association, the Female Athlete Triad refers to the development of an eating disorder, the decrease in hormones that produce a menstrual cycle, known as amenorrhea, and as a result, also reduces calcium and bone density, which can all lead to serious health issues. This syndrome is especially common in elite women’s collegiate sports, like gymnastics and cross country."