The Sports Doctor, September 16, 2026

The Sports Doctor with Dr Robert Weil Menopause Research, Nutrition, and Decades of Volleyball Excellence with Andrea Donsky and Troy Gilb Dr. Bob Weil hosts a doubleheader, talking new menopause research and nutrition with author Andrea Donsky, then digging into decades of championship youth volleyball and injury prevention with Great Lakes Volleyball's Troy Gilb. A Doubleheader Opens The Show Dr. Bob Weil opens live from Chicago with his usual sponsor rundown, thanking Global Schoolwear, Lower Extremity Review magazine, Bryan Therapeutics, and UK Health Radio, before promising listeners a doubleheader. He introduces Andrea Donsky as a women's health researcher, nutritionist, author, and menopause expert, and previews his second guest, Troy Gilb, owner and director of Great Lakes Volleyball's Sports Performance program, recalling that his own history with the club goes back decades to its earliest days. Weil frames the hour around his long-running interest in the mental side of sports and wellness, noting that a colleague once asked him why the word "men" appears inside "menopause," a question he says he plans to put to Donsky. Welcoming her to the show, Weil asks for background on her nutrition career and her personal path toward specializing in menopause, setting up the conversation that follows. Donsky's Own Menopause Awakening Andrea Donsky tells Weil she has worked in health and wellness for twenty-six years, and that about seventeen years into her career she experienced her first hot flash at age forty-seven, only recently connecting years of unexplained postpartum symptoms after her third child to perimenopause. She says the surprise stunned her, since she had spent her career educating others about nutrition and the body. Weil draws a parallel to how long nutrition and obesity went underexamined in sports medicine. Donsky describes research she has had published in the journal Menopause, including a 2024 abstract identifying more than 103 distinct menopause symptoms, far beyond the thirty-four commonly cited. She notes that nine of the ten most frequently reported symptoms are mental health and brain related, a finding Weil calls a validation of what he has called "the mental game" for decades. Both agree cognitive and emotional symptoms remain underdiscussed compared with hot flashes and night sweats. Nutrition, Nourishing Menopause, And Balance Donsky explains that her new book, Nourishing Menopause: Powerful Nutrition and Lifestyle Strategies to Feel Your Best, published by Simon & Schuster, devotes its eleventh chapter to nutrition and introduces what she calls the BALANCE Blueprint, an acronym guiding women to balance blood sugar, add fiber, load up on protein, add quality fats like omega-3s, nurture digestion, choose more plants, and ensure hydration. She lists the five most common menopause symptoms from her research: fatigue and exhaustion, reported by more than seventy-two percent of women, followed by brain fog, sleep issues, memory issues, and anxiety. Weil connects nutrition, rest, and visualization to his own decades of coaching athletes, recalling figure skaters who practiced visualization when the technique was dismissed as "voodoo." Donsky agrees, describing how she now uses visualization with her own daughter, a basketball player. She closes by directing listeners to wearemorphus.com and nourishingmenopausebook.com and to her TikTok account for more information. Troy Gilb And Volleyball's Deep Roots After a break for his own book, #HeySportsParents, and sponsor messages, Weil welcomes Troy Gilb, owner and director of Great Lakes Volleyball's Sports Performance program. Gilb recalls arriving in 2007 after years bringing setters from Nebraska to train, eventually buying the company in 2022 from founders Rick Butler and Cheryl. Weil reminisces about the club's origins around 1980 with the late strength coach Bob Gaida, whose instability and balance training and attention to feet and ankles shaped the program's philosophy, and about athletic trainer Jimmy Spinazzola's recent return after years with professional soccer. Weil, a sports podiatrist, notes that forty to fifty percent of the volleyball players he has treated over the years have had knee trouble, tying foot mechanics to jumping performance. He recalls building orthotics for a young Danny O'Shea, now an Olympic pairs figure-skating gold medalist, as an example of how proper foot support can carry an athlete's career for decades. Inside Today's Sports Performance Program Gilb describes the scale of the operation today: about five hundred athletes in the competitive Sports Performance program, another five hundred in youth academy and seasonal programs, and roughly seventeen hundred kids nationwide in summer camps last year. He says the program now runs from pre-kindergarten through high school seniors, with a near-total rate of graduates continuing on to college volleyball, and credits staff including strength coach