Momentous’ Erica Good Pushes for Female Representation in Sports Performance
Good, the co-founder of supplement brand Momentous, is working to ensure women are better represented in athletic performance studies
Erica Good, the co-founder and chief operating officer of fast-growing supplement and sports nutrition brand Momentous, is looking to change the narrative about women and human performance.
When co-founding Amp Human, a human performance company that acquired Momentous in 2021 and took on the latter’s name, Good realized how understudied and underrepresented women are in the athletic performance space.
“The vast majority of high-performance studies are on cis male subjects and even then, in the very narrow age range of 18-25,” Good tells Athletech News. “Researchers face the challenge of teasing out small effects in fairly small subject populations and have held the position that women’s menstrual cycles add another variable that makes finding these effects more difficult.”
Good also noted that the financial disparities between men’s and women’s professional sports exacerbate the problem.
“The net effect is that published literature is far better at helping strength coaches, dieticians, and athletic trainers who care for and make decisions for a male body versus a female,” she says.
Advocating for Change
Good has been focused on advocacy work in the human performance space, including going to Capitol Hill with a group of female researchers, athletes, military service members, and experts to advocate for more gender diversity in clinical research on high performance.
“We also advocated for required training for practitioners within the military to learn about how female high-performance physiology differs from males,” Good recalls.
Good adds that she’s “excited to see more studies on broader subject pools emerge in high performance.”
“Take age as a parallel example: Most high-performance studies are on participants ages 18-25 and most of our understanding of how the body ages comes from studies on aging participants in average to below-average health,” she notes. “Now, more people in their 40s and 50s have consciously kept high-performance lifestyles for decades and I would love to see how their outcomes differ in their 70s and 80s from the outcomes that existing studies predict.”
Good also noted that hormone management is gaining more much-needed attention.
“Companies and researchers are paying attention and it’s helping shift solutions upstream, for example from direct hormone replacement therapy to supplements that naturally boost hormone levels over time,” Good says. “This shift is important as direct replacement solutions are thought to suppress natural production over time.”
What’s Next for Momentous?
Momentous, which Good runs alongside CEO Jeff Byers, has had a big year. The company recently raised $32 million in an investment from Humble Growth and opened a new West Coast office in Santa Monica primarily for its marketing, partnerships, and content teams. Park City, Utah, will remain the company’s headquarters, with operations, product development, research and innovation.
Momentous is also preparing some exciting upcoming product launches.
“We will introduce new products to our portfolio later this year that we’re excited about that will offer more solutions within our core pillars (sleep, cognitive health, athletic performance, hormone support, and foundational health),” Good shares. “One of our new athletic performance products has been years in the making and we believe it will be a true disruptor within its category.”
Know Your ‘Why’
Good also offered some advice for women looking to succeed in the fitness and wellness industry.
“First, identify your purpose for being in the industry and embrace your mission—the difference you’re striving to make in the world,” she says. “Within our team at Momentous, we like for everyone to know their individual ‘why”’ because with an infinite range of things one could get up in the morning to do, knowing why Momentous helps our team bring their best energy and self to their roles.”
“As a founder, I recognize that diverse perspectives and experiences lead to interesting new ideas and trends in the world,” Good adds. “Embrace the diversity of perspectives that life experiences bring, as they can provide unique angles and insights.”