This episode of Can You Hear Us Now, focuses on the role of athletic trainers and strength coaches in women’s sports, emphasizing how training and sports science have historically been designed around male athletes. It explores how this has impacted female athletes and why there is a lot of room for growth in research and training approaches that are tailored specifically to women’s physiology and performance. The episode features Jared Jarvi, a strength and conditioning coach at UNC who works closely with women’s lacrosse and basketball. He shares insight into what it’s like to train female athletes as a male coach and how building trust and understanding is essential in that environment. Through his research and experiences, he discusses injury prevention, performance development, and how training methods can be adapted to better support women’s sports. Overall, the episode highlights the importance of evolving sports science to better reflect women’s needs and encourages listeners to think more critically about how training impacts athlete health more than success.
Guest:
Jared Jarvi is a strength and conditioning coach at the University of North Carolina. Since joining Carolina in 2023, he has worked closely with women’s lacrosse and also serves as the assistant strength coach for women’s basketball. He also oversees the Sport Science Internship Program within Carolina Strength & Conditioning. Jared is currently in his second year of UNC’s Human Movement Science Ph.D. program. He’s in the early stages of developing his dissertation, which focuses on deceleration and braking in female athletes. His research looks at how female athletes change direction, what physical qualities contribute to it, and how to better measure and train those movements. He’s focused on improving late stage return-to-sport assessments after injury. Jared’s goal is to find better ways to profile change of direction, understand the underlying physiological qualities that drive it, and develop stronger training protocols that improve performance and reduce injury risk. Before coming to Chapel Hill, Jared worked at Penn State, Michigan, and Northern Michigan, supporting a variety of Olympic and team sports. He holds certifications as a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist, Certified Performance and Sport Scientist, and USA Weightlifting Coac