Many women feel that their menstrual cycle affects their physical performance but it’s unclear how much of an effect it actually has on performance. Understanding the menstrual cycle, your specific symptoms, and how it affects you can enable you to adjust your physical training program and improve your performance. This regular, physiological process is often ignored when women develop physical training plans. Instead, you can improve your physical performance by increasing your understanding of the menstrual cycle.
Basically, the menstrual cycle is the physiological process a woman’s body goes through to prepare for pregnancy. The full cycle is usually 21–35 days long and is driven by fluctuating hormone levels that can cause many physical and mental symptoms. Fatigue, pain, and mood changes are common symptoms that can affect day-to-day performance. These factors are known to increase the potential for injury, degrade performance, and reduce motivation to exercise. So it isn’t surprising that a significant percentage of women report changes in their physical performance during different phases of their menstrual cycle based on the symptoms they experience.
Key facts
- Every woman’s menstrual cycle is different with regards to cycle length and symptoms. For many women, timing, duration, and symptoms can vary month to month.
- Pain affects your mood, willingness to exercise, and the effort you exert during physical activity. Pain can cause you to change your movement patterns because of discomfort, leading to poor technique which increases your risk of injury.
- Fatigue affects your physical performance potential, decreases your training motivation, and increases your risk of injury.
- Mood changes can degrade your physical performance and motivation to exercise.
How to sync physical training schedule with your menstrual cycle
Syncing your training plan with your menstrual cycle can optimize your performance, but it takes careful observation to start. Every woman’s menstrual cycle is unique due to the timing of each phase, her symptoms, and her symptom severity. In general, your goal should be to plan higher training volume loads when your symptoms are not as limiting and decrease your training volume loads or do active recovery during phases when your symptoms could be restrictive.
So how does this work?
To apply this strategy, it’s important to understand the key phases of the menstrual cycle and symptoms which are typically associated with each. From this, you can determine how or if your menstrual cycle impacts your performance and adapt your training plan if needed.
- The menstrual (early follicular) phase is the first phase of the menstrual cycle where the body sheds the uterine lining, resulting in bleeding. The hormones estrogen and progesterone are at their lowest levels during this phase and common symptoms include cramps, bloating, headaches, fatigue, and mood changes. All of these symptoms can affect physical performance, but some women find that exercise helps to ease these symptoms.
- The (late) follicular phase lasts about 2 weeks. During this phase, the body prepares an egg for release and estrogen levels rise in preparation for ovulation. Symptoms usually decrease resulting in increased energy, improved mood, and a heightened sense of wellbeing and women can experience increased strength during this phase. Because estrogen plays a major role in muscle repair and recovery, the late follicular phase can be an ideal time for maximum effort or higher-intensity resistance training.
- The ovulation phase lasts about 24–48 hours and is the shortest phase of the menstrual cycle. During this phase, an ovary releases an egg. Possible symptoms can be mild pelvic pain, light spotting, and breast tenderness. Performance potential continues to be high as energy levels and motivation peak. There can be an elevated risk for musculoskeletal injury (MSK-i) during this phase because the hormonal changes can increase joint flexibility and decrease neuromuscular control .
- The luteal phase is the final phase of the menstrual cycle and lasts about 2 weeks. In this phase, the body prepares for potential pregnancy by thickening the uterine lining. If an egg is not fertilized or if a fertilized egg fails to embed in the uterine lining, the body restarts the cycle and goes into the menstruation phase. Common symptoms during this phase include fatigue, irritability, mood changes, headache, cramps, and lowered concentration. Symptoms are almost always the most severe during this luteal phase. This relatively severe symptom intensity is commonly called “premenstrual syndrome” and can negatively affect physical performance. If symptoms are severe during this phase, exercise intensity and volume should be adjusted and focus should shift to active recovery.
Application
To sync your physical training plan with your menstrual cycle, start by tracking your cycle duration and symptoms using the menstrual cycle handout. Mark the days you have menstrual bleeding and describe the symptoms you experience each day to get a general idea of the length and symptoms of your menstrual (early follicular) phase. Next, do the same for ovulation. Note the first time that you observe any symptoms or use a home ovulation test kit to pinpoint when it is occurring. From there you can estimate when your follicular and luteal phases should begin and end. On this same handout, record each day how recovered you feel from the previous day’s workout on a low to high scale from 1 to 10. Use this information to characterize how and when your cycle impacts your energy, motivation, and readiness to exercise. Do this for a few months and then you can begin to arrange your training plan to align with your body’s dynamic needs throughout the duration of your cycle.
Based on your observations, develop a physical training plan using block periodization and arrange each block to the timing, duration, and symptom profile of your cycle. For example, if your menstrual cycle is typically 32 days, you can set up each training block to be 35 days (5 weeks) long. Next, arrange your lower volume load weeks with your early follicular phase and late luteal phases. Then, arrange your higher volume load weeks with your late follicular and ovulation phases.
“Volume load” is calculated as the amount of weight you lift, multiplied by the number of sets you perform multiplied by the number of reps in each set. Or simply weight x sets x reps = volume load. Here’s an example of back squats in a higher volume load week versus a lower volume load week:
- 200 lbs for 5 sets of 6 reps is 200 x 5 x 6 = 6000 lbs
- 150 lbs for 3 sets of 5 reps is 150 x 3 x 5 = 2250 lbs
During the early follicular phase and late luteal phase, you can use the daily recovery scale on your handout to decide if you should do an active recovery session or a planned lower volume load session. If you record a number 1 or 2, do an active recovery session. If you record a number 3 or 4, follow your lower volume load physical training plan.
Keep in mind
A critical part of any physical training plan is including injury prevention strategies. During the ovulation phase, there can be an increased risk of injury due to hormone changes. These hormonal changes can affect your joint stability, neuromuscular control, and strength. With this potential for increased risk during this phase, you may want to avoid multidirectional sports (such as basketball, tennis, and others) and agility exercises (such as shuttle runs, cone drills, and others) when possible. Other ways to work injury prevention strategies into your physical training plan are including a dynamic warmup, properly ordering your exercises, and properly progressing your training plan based on your current physical fitness level.
Also, your menstrual cycle can disrupt your sleep. Poor sleep and lack of sleep can degrade your physical performance and increase your risk of injury. Women often report poorer sleep quality in the final days of the luteal phase just prior to menstruation. When you’re extremely fatigued, adjust your physical training plan and try performing lower training volume loads or lower-skill exercises. As a Service Member, you might have to physically perform during a phase of your cycle that isn’t ideal. But, you can optimize your performance with mental fitness strategies, sleep improvement techniques, or even adjust your training plan ahead of time to help ensure you have the most energy and capacity to perform.
Lastly
How do you determine if aligning your physical training plan to your menstrual cycle has improved your physical performance? Take some time to think about how you feel after you’ve worked through your synced training plan for a few months.. Self assessment and self evaluation are your most valuable measurements and can highlight your improvements in motivation, energy, and training enjoyment.
