Dr. Catherine Saenz

In this episode of Research 2 Reps, we’re joined by Dr. Catherine Saenz for a conversation that starts with her path through exercise science, nutrition, research, professional baseball, and academia. Dr. Saenz has built a career at the intersection of several disciplines, and we talk about how that background shapes her view of athlete health and performance. From her early research experiences at Maryland to her graduate work at UConn and Ohio State, she shares how her curiosity about performance nutrition eventually expanded into a much bigger picture of how training, nutrition, recovery, and physiology work together.

We also spend a good part of the conversation digging into ketogenic diets and what the research actually tells us about using them with athletes. Catherine explains why no single sport or athlete is automatically a good fit, and why the individual, the timing, and the reason for using a particular dietary approach all matter. From elite ultra-endurance athletes using carbohydrates during competition to the differences between nutritional ketosis and ketone supplements, this conversation is a good reminder that performance decisions rarely happen in isolation. We close out this first part by talking about something that matters just as much as the science: learning how to listen, communicate, and work effectively within a multidisciplinary performance team.

In the second half of our conversation we move to how professionals can work within different team cultures and bring their expertise into an environment without immediately trying to take over. Catherine, Ted, Ernie, and I discuss collaboration, consulting, and why sometimes one of the smartest things you can do is give people space, learn how the organization operates, and understand what the athletes and staff actually need before offering solutions. We also get into the role of health and performance teams and how a multidisciplinary structure can help protect athletes when coaching practices cross the line from demanding to potentially harmful.

From there, we spend much of the episode discussing female athlete physiology, menstrual cycles, performance, and the major gaps that still exist in the research. Dr. Saenz explains why we need more than simple conclusions about what should happen during a textbook 28-day cycle, because real athletes and real menstrual cycles are far more variable than that. We discuss ACL injury questions, athlete-reported experiences, the need for better research funding, and the importance of creating environments where female athletes can openly communicate what they are experiencing. We also look at the bigger opportunity for exercise physiology in collegiate and professional sport and why bringing more physiology expertise into the performance team could help us ask better questions, collect better information, and ultimately serve athletes better.

Thanks to podcast sponsors, Sorinex and EliteForm, for making these episodes possible.