In the push to “debunk” hormone-based training guidance, Lauren Colenso-Semple has made a name for herself as the anti-Stacy Sims. She’s sharp, data-driven, and constantly calls for more honesty and transparency in women’s sports science. That sounds like a good thing—until you look closer and realize the science she’s championing excludes the very population she claims to be protecting from misinformation.
So let’s talk about what’s really going on here: not a war of facts, but a breakdown in representation, integrity, and follow-through.
Before We Begin: A Note on Nuance
I want to be clear up front—I don’t blindly follow anyone in this space. I don’t agree with everything Stacy Sims says, and I’ve even felt dismissed in a personal reply from her at one point. She rarely speaks about surgical menopause, and my takeaway from a lot of her messaging has been: “Stop chasing endurance, and replace it with HIIT, SIT, and heavy lifting.” That doesn’t always sit well with me—and I know from conversations in the HPNP Facebook group that I’m not the only one who’s felt that way. Some women found relief when I said it out loud. Others interpret her message differently.
And that’s exactly the point.
There’s space to critique and still respect.
There’s room to question without tearing someone down.
I’m not here to defend every word Sims (or anyone else) has ever said—but I’m also not okay watching her (and others like her) be publicly discredited by people who don’t even work with the population they claim to be protecting. Because when that happens, it’s not just a difference of opinion. It’s another wall going up between peri/menopausal athletes and the tools we need to keep moving forward.
Colenso-Semple's Public Standard: Honesty, Transparency, and Evidence
In a recent thread, Lauren declared:
“Demand honesty and transparency from anyone who claims to be a scientist or science communicator. Sharing references is easy!”
And she’s right. We should demand that.
So let’s start with her.
The Honest Truth: Her Work Doesn’t Include Menopausal Women
Despite positioning herself as a leading voice for “female athletes,” Colenso-Semple’s research doesn’t include menopausal women—the fastest-growing group in sport and fitness. Not perimenopausal. Not postmenopausal. Not even hormonally suppressed athletes that mimic the state of menopause. They’re just… not there.
That’s not protecting anyone. That’s erasure.
PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Colenso-Semple+LM&cauthor_id=37033884
Her Response to That Absence?
Here are her public explanations (direct quotes):
“A lot of what applies to men applies to women. A lot of what applies to younger people applies to older individuals.”
“People use the ‘absence of research’ as an excuse to create recommendations based on mechanistic or rodent data.”
“It’s really important for everyone to understand how challenging it is to do high quality research in this population... It’s easy to criticize.”
Let’s break this down:
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She minimizes the unique physiology of women in menopause.
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She dismisses any attempt to bridge the gap using physiology, coaching experience, or animal models.
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She admits the research is hard, but uses that difficulty as an excuse not to try—while still making broad conclusions that impact real-world athletes.
That’s not transparency. That’s an academic cop-out.
The Big Problem: She Frames Her Bias as Rigor
Lauren’s work often positions itself as “objective” while clearly targeting the frameworks made popular by Stacy Sims—without actually offering better guidance for the same demographic. She’s not just questioning the science. She’s setting herself up as a corrective voice without serving the same audience.
Meanwhile, the very women who need nuanced, hormonally-informed support—menopausal athletes, women with PCOS, those on HRT, or recovering from RED-S—are erased from her data set.
Visual Breakdown: The Sims vs. Colenso-Semple Divide
Here’s a quick side-by-side of what each brings to the table:
| Stacy Sims | Lauren Colenso-Semple | |
|---|---|---|
| Studies menopause? | Yes (though not all primary research) | No |
| Includes lived experience? | Yes | No (lab-only focus) |
| Research model | Applied science + coaching translation | Controlled trials, mainly oral contraceptive users |
| Approach to hormone effects | Central to training adaptations | Often deemed “not statistically significant” |
| Risk of cherry-picking? | Yes, especially in popular translation | Yes, especially in targeting specific claims |
| Tone toward other experts | Bold, sometimes overstated | Dismissive, often derisive |
| Practical tools for coaches/athletes? | Yes (books, protocols, education) | No direct application for menopause |
| Representation of midlife women? | Central to her work |
Absent from studies and discussion |
The Consequences for Coaches and Athletes
As a coach who works with menopausal and midlife athletes every day, here’s what I see:
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Athletes feeling gaslit when told their real symptoms “don’t matter statistically.”
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Coaches stuck between scientific minimization and lived complexity.
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A return to one-size-fits-men thinking, now just dressed up as “evidence-based.”
If we only study women in controlled lab settings on hormonal birth control, we’re not moving forward—we’re just polishing the old model and slapping a gender sticker on it.
This Isn’t a Rivalry. It’s a Missed Opportunity.
Imagine if Lauren’s rigor and Sims’ applied frameworks actually built off each other. We could get:
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Better studies with more diverse hormone profiles
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Smarter training models for every life stage
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Translational tools that coaches can actually use
Instead, we’re getting a public teardown of one of the only women trying to make training more personalized for menopausal women.
And if Colenso-Semple isn’t offering something better?
Then what, exactly, is she protecting us from?
Let’s Redefine “Evidence-Based”
True evidence-based coaching and science should include:
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Physiology and lived experience
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Curiosity, not dismissal
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Representation of all women, not just those who fit a lab profile and definitely not men's research applied to peri/menopausal women
So yes, let’s demand honesty and transparency—from everyone.
But that means also asking researchers like Lauren:
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Why haven’t you studied menopausal women?
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Why do you continually discredit hormone-sensitive models without offering better ones?
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Who are you actually serving with your research?
Because until her work starts asking those questions, it’s not evidence-based for women—it’s just exclusion in a lab coat.
This Isn't Just About Sims: The Bigger Pattern That's Hurting Progress
Let’s zoom out for a second. Because Lauren Colenso-Semple’s critiques don’t stop at Stacy Sims. She’s also gone after Dr. Vonda Wright, an orthopedic surgeon advocating for movement-based bone health strategies in midlife women, and Dr. Mary Claire Haver, an OB/GYN known for promoting nutrition and supplement guidance through The Galveston Diet.
So what do all of these women have in common?
They’ve stepped outside the narrow confines of clinical research to meet midlife women where they are, offering practical strategies, language, and visibility that the traditional research world continues to avoid.
Lauren publicly critiques these experts for lacking RCTs or "misleading" women. But when that same research world refuses to fund or prioritize midlife women—especially athletic ones—who’s really responsible for the gap?
She says she wants to protect women from misinformation, but often ends up targeting the few professionals doing the heavy lifting that science still isn’t.
The Science Isn’t Neutral When It Ignores the Population It Claims to Protect
This isn’t a one-off disagreement between two science communicators. It’s a pattern. And when that pattern repeats across multiple women-centered professionals, it deserves to be named:
| Category | Lauren Colenso-Semple | Impact on Menopausal Athletes |
|---|---|---|
| Approach to Evidence | Prioritizes RCTs, meta-analyses, and mechanistic studies. Dismisses extrapolation. | Leaves large gaps where no RCTs exist, especially for menopausal athletes. |
| Population Studied | Primarily young men and general populations. | Women 40+ are often implied in her conclusions but rarely actually studied. |
| Tone Toward Other Experts | Publicly critiques practitioners like Sims, Wright, and Haver for "cherry-picking" or "misleading." | Creates fear and distrust in professionals offering accessible, action-based guidance. |
| Alignment With Other Voices | Closely aligned with Dr. Jen Gunter, often reposting her critiques and ideology. | Reinforces skepticism around HRT and applied menopause strategies—even when helpful. |
| Practical Application | Rarely offers training guidance or lived-experience solutions. | Fails to meet women where they are. Leaves coaches and athletes without usable next steps. |
| Engagement With Athletes | No known direct work with athletic menopausal populations. | Offers critiques from the outside, without understanding the training or lived experience. |
| Claimed Intent vs. Impact | Says she wants to protect women from misinformation. | Ends up silencing voices that are actually helping women take control of their health. |
| Pattern of Critique | Targets multiple women-centered practitioners, not just one. | Shows a bias that undermines progress and diversity in menopause care and training. |
If You Want Better Science, Build the Bridge—Don’t Burn It
Lauren has said:
“It’s really important for everyone to understand how challenging it is to do high-quality research in this population.”
No argument there. But if it's so hard to study menopausal athletes, then the answer can’t be “so let’s not try” or “everyone else should stay quiet.” That’s not scientific rigor—that’s scientific gatekeeping.
Instead of dismissing people working with imperfect data, we need to:
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Fund better studies.
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Center athletic midlife women in research design.
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Collaborate across disciplines and real-life experience.
You don’t protect women from misinformation by pretending only pristine data counts, especially when that data doesn’t exist yet for the people who need it most.
Who Benefits from Silence?
When a pattern like this repeats—where expert women are systematically dismissed, where athletes are told to wait quietly for “better evidence,” and where nuance gets flattened into critique—we have to ask:
Who benefits?
Not the menopausal athlete looking for strength, clarity, or guidance.
Not the coach trying to support them with lived-experience tools.
And definitely not the women who’ve already been told their pain, symptoms, or performance plateaus are “just part of getting older.”
This dynamic keeps power consolidated in the hands of institutions that have ignored this population for decades. It allows academics to stay “above the noise” while continuing to ignore the real needs on the ground. It puts barriers between science and the people who need it most.
So maybe the real threat isn’t “misinformation.”
Maybe the real threat is that women are finally figuring out how to train smarter, fuel better, and advocate for themselves—without waiting for permission.
And maybe that scares the system just enough to push back.