🎧 Quick note: If you want to learn more about the current research on menstrual cycles or oral contraceptives please checkout my personal podcast @themessymiddlepodcast with @claire_barbellmedicine

I also recently did an interview with @runningexplained on this topic as well. And @ebtofficial earlier this year.

📖 & if you hit the book looking icon on my profile you can find all my other posts on this topic.

NOW — should you change your training for your cycle? Maybe, if you want. But it isn’t necessary and you don’t HAVE to.

Current research is mixed. For many reasons. One being that cycle to cycle differences person or person or within their own cycle can change.

And largely my personal view is that women and menstruating individuals NEED heavy resistance training, and a aerobic fitness fitness status. These largely contribute to metabolic and overall health.

Telling people not to train 2 weeks out of the month is not health promoting. 👏🏻

But symptoms can be real or valid! Which is why using an auto regulation tool can be incredible helpful. Especially when slept quality, diet, stress & life can also carry over just as many effects into our training as our hormones may.

This allows you to reduce volume to the desired intensity so that you ARENT “over doing it”. You can learn to work WITH not against your body. And this may look different even Month to month.

This is just one of many tools we can use. And If a person has a uniquely different time adapting can play around with more specific periodization. And a lot of the impacts it has can be addressed with simply adjusting some aspects of one’s sleep/diet to account for them!

Here’s some examples here of what this may look like! And honestly, same rules apply to all humans being human and adjusting for life too.

RPE is a fantastic tool that can likely help you account for a lot of individual experience and fluctuations in a non “hormones make you fragile” crappy narrative kind of way.

Because you’re strong and stronger, always! 🤟🏻

If you found this helpful please consider sharing it! And don’t forget to save for later if you want to refer back!