Should You Change Your Workouts During Your Cycle? What Science Really Says

Are there specific times within a woman's cycle, maybe the high hormone cycle was the lutial phase that you mentioned, that we should be adapting our training to or should we just be more intuitive with our bodies? Like, is

there actually a specific time to be better at weight training or recovery or is that more of a myth?

So, there's a lot to unpack there because of the science that's come out over the past maybe 5 years.

Okay.

So, we look at the earlier studies is all molecularbased, right? And we see that in the low hormone phase where the body is very stress resilient or becoming very stress resilient, we have

better availability for building muscle and our core temperature is lower. We're

able to access carbohydrate better. We

can hit higher intensities. We look from a mood and a cognition standpoint. We

have more aggression and we're better reaction time. So all the things play

reaction time. So all the things play into being able to do high intensity and train really well. And then

and this is what like day six to 14.

Oh, even day 1 to 14.

Day one. So when you're on your period.

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay.

Because your hormones have dropped, right?

And people are like, "But I feel like the first day of my period." Well,

yeah. So that's where we look at the lived experiences.

Okay. Then when we look after ovulation from a molecular standpoint, we see all these changes with metabolism where your body can't access carbohydrate very well

because it's really taking carbohydrate that you're eating to create a very lush endometrial lining that's thick with glycogen. We also see that there's

glycogen. We also see that there's increase in protein needs because progesterone is very catabolic, breaks things down. It's all about building

things down. It's all about building tissue. That's how everything originated

tissue. That's how everything originated with the whole cycle sinking where you're doing X in the low hormone and X and the high hormone. But the caveat is ovulation.

Right.

Right. So if we don't ovulate, then we don't have those changes. But as I said earlier, we will still bleed if we don't ovulate. So no one can really tell if

ovulate. So no one can really tell if they've ovulated or not.

So when we start really big digging down into menstrual cycle training, it has to be on the woman's own experience. So

this is why I'm always saying you want to track your cycle. You want to see how you're sleeping. You'll know when you

you're sleeping. You'll know when you feel really great. You'll know when you don't feel so great. It's like I know when my period is going to come because 2 days before I feel bulletproof and I'm

like in the gym hitting it hard and can really go and I'm like why do I feel so great? Oh that's why period, right? And

great? Oh that's why period, right? And

then other women are like, "How can you do that two days before?" Like, "I just don't get it." And it's when the hormones are actually dropping or when they have dropped.

So, this is where you start to really dial in and say, "Okay, well, I know the first two days of my bleed, I'm really lethargic."

lethargic." That's me.

Yeah.

So, I'm not going to plan any super high intensity days or try to hit heavy loads in the gym because I just don't want to put my body in additional stress as you

go through. and you're like, "Okay,

go through. and you're like, "Okay, well, the first few days feel really lethargic, but I know that by day four, I'm pretty good. So, that's when I'm going to start scheduling in some more high-intensity stuff, or maybe I haven't

been training, and those are the days I'm going to prioritize going and doing what I want to do in the gym or outside or whatever it is." But what I don't want people to think is that, okay, I know my patterns and I know when I feel

really good and when I don't, but I don't want people to say, well, I can't do that because of my period.

That's the thing. That's the thing where we hear all this, "Well, you can't do that because you feel lethargic." Well,

do I feel lethargic, so I can't? Or are

you telling me I can't because I just told you I felt lethargic? It's like,

yes, you can still do what you want to do because when we think about the physicality of movement that can supersede a lot of the menstrual cycle hormone influences.

So, we have this conversation that women are delicate pedals when they're on their period, and it's part of the constructs. So that's why I tell women,

constructs. So that's why I tell women, I really want you to understand how you feel across your menstrual cycle and not listen to the rhetoric that we've been

fed for so many years of come from a social dogma where men were dictating it and didn't understand a menstrual cycle, didn't understand a bleed. So just

assume that if you're bleeding, then you can't do anything.

How's all the research been done on the menstrual cycle?

Now it's becoming really good.

Okay, good. Yeah,

it's becoming good.

This is good.

Right. So, we're seeing a lot of really cool new tools that are coming out like Prove that detects ovulation through a progesterone metabolite. So, it's used

progesterone metabolite. So, it's used in the fertility world and there's a lot of fertility tools that are out there again because of the upsurgence of an ovulation that we can now take into the field because it's really expensive to

do blood tests and these are all validated tests that we can now bring into um menstrual cycle research. And then

when we're looking at some of the designs that are coming out, we know for the most part most of the research previously have been on done on white um

minoric female athletes, which is like hence teeth, right? It's a very very rare to find that. And we're not really sure if they were truly humanic, meaning

they had normal cycles because of the bleed factor of an ovulation.

Yeah. Cool. So now dialing it in and saying okay well we want to look at all different ethnicities.

We also have to understand the social construct of what the menstrual cycle means across the ethnicities so that we can have really good cohorts of people who all feel the same way so that when

we're asking how you're feeling about training there isn't a blur of what you experience growing up in one country versus what I experienced growing up in

another country. So we're bringing the

another country. So we're bringing the um sociology into it. We're bringing the cultural nuances into it. We're also

bringing the basic physiology of we have to make sure that you have in fact ovulated. So that's all exciting in the

ovulated. So that's all exciting in the new research that's okay. This is great.

okay. This is great.