Your menstrual cycle is your biggest performance enhancer... if you know how to use it!
Have you ever had a week where you felt your performance was randomly it’s best? Lifting that heavier weight feels easier than usual, you ran your fastest mile, or maybe you don’t fatigue as easily.
Yet, sometimes within only a week or two of this fantastic phase, you could be struggling with your usual workload, feeling tired and sore after a typical session, or maybe you’re hitting the wall sooner than usual.
If you relate to this, and all other factors such as sleep, nutrition, and training intensity do not change, these changes in performance (big or small), could be due to the fact you’re transitioning from one stage in your menstrual cycle to another.
Reaching the end of this blog will reward you with:
- A better understanding of your own menstrual cycle and how each stage can affect your performance levels
- Ways to optimize your performance during the tough times in your cycle
- Research backed nutrition strategies that can help stop your period and PMS being a barrier to exercise
It is important to take note that this blog is only relevant to women who are not currently on any form of hormonal contraception, and those who experience regular menstrual cycles. A normal menstrual cycle according to medical research is one that lasts anywhere between 21 and 40 days. Although this is concerned normal, you should be aiming for one that lasts anywhere between 24 and 35 days for optimal health.
What hormones are responsible?
Before we dive into the stages of the menstrual cycle, it’s important to be familiar with root causes of all the positive and negative things that can occur across the entire cycle.
There are over 50 different types of hormones that are responsible for many processes happening in your body. However, in this article we are going to be focusing on hormones called oestrogen and progesterone.
Oestrogen is produced by your ovaries, and helps your body prepare for pregnancy by allowing ovulation to occur.
Progesterone allows the lining of your womb thicken, in the event that a baby is conceived. However, if no eggs are fertilised (no baby is made), the progesterone levels drop and the lining of the womb is broken down and shed, resulting in what you know as your period.
Therefore, as you can now see, oestrogen is the main hormone in the beginning of your cycle to help create eggs (first 2 weeks), whereas progesterone is the main hormone in the second half and is responsible for your period (last two weeks). However, there is always a presence of both at all times.
As you will read in this article, these two hormones are also some of the main elements responsible for the highs and lows of your performance levels throughout your menstrual cycle.
The four stages of Your Menstrual Cycle
- Menstruation
At the start of your cycle oestrogen and progesterone are low, as a result, the lining of your womb would shed, and you would then experience your period.
In terms of performance levels, you might see a small reduction in performance in strength and endurance. However, it is still considered safe to exercise and, in some cases, may reduce common period symptoms such as cramps, fatigue, and headaches.
Nutrition Strategies for optimizing performance during menstruation:
Magnesium:
Period cramps can often times be the difference of hitting the gym, or “taking an extra rest day”. Although rest days ARE a vital element of getting better gains, period cramps shouldn’t be a barrier when there are solutions to be used.
Magnesium has been shown to relax muscles and reduce cramps pre and during menstruation. Studies show that consuming 150mg – 300mg of magnesium per day can reduce symptoms such as period cramps, breast tenderness, and abdominal bloating.
However, if you are struggling to increase these foods, or symptoms are moderate to severe, supplementation could be a better option for you. 310-320 mg is the recommended daily amount for women, however reaching the upper limit is unlikely to cause any harmful side effects.
Omega 3:
Once the dreaded day 1 comes of your period, you find yourself packing all the essentials, sanitary towels, tampons, and painkillers. Well, what if we told you that you could pack one less thing… painkillers.
Studies show that you could opt for a more natural solution which could reduce the number of times you reach for the relief of painkillers. The natural solution being at least 300mg of omega 3 every day.
(Upper limit=3,000mg daily)
Anti-Inflammatory Foods:
Menstruation is an inflammatory process. A well-known example of another inflammatory process would be your body increasing its temperature, to kill any bacteria/virus causing infection in your body.
Hormones called prostaglandins are released when your lining sheds, and these hormones cause muscle contractions in the uterus. These contractions trigger pain and the inflammatory process to occur.
However, you can reduce this inflammation by eating more foods that contain anti-inflammatory properties. By reducing this inflammation, you can ease your period cramps, and therefore optimize your ability to perform and train.
- The Follicular Phase
In this stage, progesterone remains low, and oestrogen has a huge rise. This is good news to you as oestrogen has been proven to have antioxidant properties which can help reduce muscle damage and inflammation that can occur during exercise.
The good news continues with this hormone. It has also been shown help muscular, maximal, and sub-maximal performance as not only does it induce anabolic effects, but it can also promote the amount of glycogen consumed and reduce glycogen used in stores.
In comparison to the rest of your cycle, you may feel stronger, more tolerant to pain, and have faster recoveries, especially towards the end of this stage when oestrogen peaks. This is a good time to push your limits or try for new personal bests.
Due to increased usage and storage of carbohydrates, it’s important to opt for more carbs as fuel, especially complex carbohydrates.
Complex carbs will give you long lasting energy, but take time to digest and breakdown for fuel. Simple carbs will give you quick, but unsustainable energy, so it’s important to find a balance, and correct time for both.
- Ovulation
During this stage, your body is actually at its closest to the physiology of the average man!
With ovulation usually occurring anywhere between days 14 and 16 of your cycle, oestrogen levels will start to drop however, the presence of the hormone testosterone will actually allow your strength and performance capacity to remain strong.
Due to a higher presence of oestrogen in comparison to progesterone, carbohydrates will still continue to be used and stored readily, so it is recommended to continue a similar diet to that of the follicular phase (i.e., high carb intake) to fuel your workouts.
- The Luteal Phase
This phase can be good news for aerobic and endurance sports female athletes, and somewhat bad news for those who mainly focus on strength training.
During this phase, oestrogen drops dramatically at the beginning, along with a steep rise in steep rise in progesterone. Progesterone’s main job is to prepare your body for menstruation, and regulate your menstrual cycle.
As previously mentioned above in the follicular phase, oestrogen has anabolic effects, as well as the ability to optimize uptake of glycogen and maximize glycogen stores. Therefore, during the luteal phase where oestrogen plumets… you can guess what that might mean for you.
Decreased oestrogen can affect things such as strength gains, recovery, and hydration. But don’t let that stop you from lifting weights! Keep your muscles moving by using lighter weights and higher reps.
However, all is not lost! Research has shown that female athletes oxidise fats better in the luteal phase than they do in the follicular phase. So, this could be a good time to focus on improving aerobic capacity through aerobic activities such as walking, jogging, cycling, or swimming.
To enhance your aerobic performance during this stage, you should focus on eating healthy fats for fuel such as nut butters, fatty fish, seeds, or soymilk.
In terms of carbohydrates, it is important to remember that your ability to store and use glycogen is reduced. Studies show that carb-loading more than you usually load, can help improve glycogen storage capacity.
However, it is still a good idea to focus on lots of recovery during this stage as oestrogen has dropped, and as we learned above, this hormone has anti-inflammatory properties. Without it, you may be at risk of exercise-induced muscle damage, and delayed recovery. For extra protection you can implement some of the anti-inflammatory foods we mentioned above for the menstruation stage.
Towards the end of the luteal stage, the body begins to prepare for menstruation. Progesterone is at its highest, and this is where premenstrual syndrome (PMS) may present itself for many women.
Some women suffer more before their period even comes, and feel relief when it does come. You may relate to the feeling of being randomly emotional for “no reason”, and then the next day you get your period, and you say, “oh that’s why I was an antichrist last night”.
Using nutritional strategies to reduce PMS symptoms can actually have a knock-on effect to reducing menstrual symptoms.
So, what can you do to ease PMS and prepare for menstruation?
Curcumin:
Curcumin is one of the main elements of the spice turmeric. Studies show that increasing your consumption of curcumin can reduce both physical and psychological symptoms.
Ideas to add curcumin into your diet:
- Sprinkle it onto nuts
- Add to vegetables before roasting
- Pop it in a soup
- Add it to a green smoothie
Iron:
Due to blood loss during menstruation, females are at a higher risk of anaemia. Increasing foods high in iron can reduce this risk.
There is also research to support that higher intakes of non-haem iron can reduce PMS symptoms.
Chasteberry:
Breast pain is a common complaint pre and during periods. If breast pain has ever stopped you going for that run, or fitness class, introducing chasteberries into your diet could help!
Research supports this fruit to be a good regulator of hormones and can reduce PMS symptoms, especially breast pain.
Conclusion
In finishing this blog, you may feel overwhelmed with the number of changes you think you need to make to optimize your performance as a female athlete, and wondering how can I achieve this?
In short, start small. Start to be aware of how you feel each week, and refer back to this information to see if these feelings are related to your menstrual cycle. Are you starting to notice changes in performance and/or mood?
Then, based on these observations, try implement small changes each week to try cycle-sync your training, such as adding some curcumin to a soup, or training low during your luteal phase to optimize fat oxidation.
Build on these changes’ week by week, and most importantly, stay consistent! As time passes, these habits will become second nature, and you can train and compete knowing you’re working with your body, and not against it.
If you'd like to learn more about how you can use your specific female hormones to improve your race times, download a free copy of our Female Athlete eBook below!
References
- Berbic, M. & Fraser, I. S., 2013. Immunology of normal and abnormal menstruation. Womens Health, 387-395.
- Khayat, S. et al., 2015. Curcumin attenuates severity of premenstrual syndrome symptoms: A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. Complementary Therapies In Medicine, 318 - 324.
- McNulty, K. L. et al., 2020. The Efects of Menstrual Cycle Phase on Exercise Performance in Eumenorrheic Women: A Systematic Review and Meta‑Analysis. Sports Medicine.
- Rahbar, N., Asgharzadeh, N. & Ghorbani, R., 2012. Effect of omega-3 fatty acids on intensity of primary dysmenorrhea. International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics, 45- 47.
- Yaralizadeh, M. et al., 2021. Effectiveness of Magnesium on Menstrual Symptoms. International Journal of Women’s Health and Reproduction Sciences, 1-7.
