PERFORMANCE: Stop Training Around Your Cycle — Start Training Around Your Body

Just because you menstruate doesn't mean it should dictate your training and activity. Ascent Tahoe Physical Therapy shares the facts on how to regulate below.

Stop Training Around Your Cycle- Start Training Around Your Body

Auto-Regulation Beats Training Around Menstrual Phases

Recently, “cycle-syncing” workouts (meaning adjusting your sport or training plan around the phases of the menstrual cycle) for menstruating women have gained immense attention and popularity across social media.

You’ve likely seen claims like:

• “Never lift heavy during your luteal phase.”

• “You should only do yoga or walking while menstruating.”

• “Hormones make intense training unsafe half the month.”

While possible, well-intentioned, this messaging oversimplifies female physiology—and in some cases, discourages women from training consistently or confidently. It creates a barrier between women and their sport or the weight room, making people feel fragile or not in control.

Diving into the research, it is clear that strict cycle-syncing isn’t supported by strong evidence.

Tried and true auto-regulation is a far more effective and empowering strategy.

The Menstrual Cycle: Real Hormones, Overstated Effects

It is very true that hormones fluctuate across the menstrual cycle. Estrogen and progesterone

rise and fall across the follicular phase, ovulation, luteal phase, and menstruation.

However, acute hormonal changes do not automatically translate to predictable changes in

strength, endurance, injury risk, or performance.

What the evidence shows:

• Large inter-individual variability exists—women respond very differently to hormonal fluctuations.

• Many well-controlled studies show minimal to no meaningful differences in strength,

• power, or aerobic performance across cycle phases.

• Day-to-day factors like sleep, nutrition, stress, recovery, and training load have a much

• larger impact on performance than the cycle phase alone.

Essentially:

* Two women in the same phase of their cycle may feel and/or perform completely differently.

* The same woman may feel great one cycle and flat the next—during the same phase!

This intense inter- and intra-person variability is exactly why rigid cycle-based prescriptions fall short.

Issues With Rigid Cycle-Syncing

Cycle-syncing usually assumes:

• Estrogen = good performance

• Progesterone = poor performance

• This black and white framing creates unnecessary limitations and reinforces the idea that

• Women are biologically fragile or inconsistent athletes, which simply isn’t true.

Potential negative effects of strict cycle-syncing:

• Reduced training consistency

• Unnecessary fear around “hard” training

• Missed or delayed strength and performance adaptations

• Missed or delayed participation in sport or athletic activity (or FUN!)

• Over-attention to hormones instead of recovery and workload

• Increased mental stress and loss of confidence

For recreational and competitive athletes alike, training quality over time matters far more than perfectly matching workouts to hormone curves. Plus, what if you’re on your period when your friend plans a sick backcountry trip? Are you supposed to miss out on that!?

What Actually Works: Auto-Regulation

Rather than basing your training or participation in sports/recreation on menstrual

phases, evidence supports auto-regulation—adjusting training based on how your body is

responding right now.

Auto-regulation accounts for:

• Fatigue

• Sleep quality

• Stress

• Nutrition

• Recovery status

• Perceived exertion

• Motivation and readiness

These are all factors that have been proven to affect performance far more than the menstrual cycle phase you are in!

Auto-regulation in practice:

• Adjusting load or reps based on Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE) or Reps in Reserve

• (RIR)

• Modifying volume or time spent on the hill/in the snow when recovery feels low

• Pushing the intensity of your gym training or sport when you feel strong—regardless of the cycle

• phase

  
  

Swapping training focus without abandoning the session entirely. This approach respects physiology without letting hormones dictate ability.

Menstrual Symptoms Do Not Predict Performance

It’s important to acknowledge that some women experience significant symptoms, such as

cramping, migraines, heavy bleeding, or fatigue—especially during menstruation.

But the key distinction is this:

• Symptoms should guide training or participation modifications

• Cycle phase alone should not guide your exercise or sport decision-making

If symptoms are present, adapting training or activity choice is appropriate. This is HIGHLY

individualized and cannot be predicted across athletes or even across menstrual cycles! If

symptoms are absent or tolerable, there’s no evidence-based reason to hold back!

This symptom-based approach is far more precise and adaptable than just assuming limitations based solely on cycle timing!

Consistent Training Builds Strong Athletes!

Women have:

• Successfully trained at elite levels across all cycle phases

• Set personal bests while menstruating

• Built strength and endurance with standard periodized programs for decades

• The body adapts to training stimulus, not hormone charts on Instagram or from your favorite influencer.

Consistency, progressive overload, recovery, and smart/personalized and adaptable coaching remain the pillars of performance for both those who menstruate and those who do not.

The Key Takeaway:

You do not need to restructure your training every month to match your menstrual cycle.

Instead:

• Train consistently

• Listen to your body

• Adjust based on readiness and symptoms

• Use auto-regulation to guide intensity and volume

• Stop assuming hormones are a limitation

• Have FUN when you want to!

• Your cycle provides information, not rules.

Final Thought

Empowering women in sport doesn’t mean protecting them from training or creating barriers around participation in the gym or in a sport —it means providing tools to train intelligently and confidently.

Auto-regulation wins!

Sources:

Colenso-Semple LM, D'Souza AC, Elliott-Sale KJ and Phillips SM (2023) Current evidence

shows no influence of women's menstrual cycle phase on acute strength performance or

adaptations to resistance exercise training. Front. Sports Act. Living

Wen Y, Gao B, Wang R, Zhao C. Exercise performance at different phases of the menstrual

cycle: measurements, differences, and mechanisms – a narrative review. Front Endocrinol.

2025;16:1448686. doi: 10.3389/fendo.2025.1448686

Miller BF, Hansen M, Olesen JL, Flyvbjerg A, Schwarz P, Babraj JA, Smith K, Rennie MJ, Kjaer

M. No effect of menstrual cycle on myofibrillar and connective tissue protein synthesis in

contracting skeletal muscle. Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab. 2006 Jan;290(1):E163-E168. doi:

10.1152/ajpendo.00300.2005. Epub 2005 Aug 30. PMID: 16131512.

Lebrun CM. Effect of the different phases of the menstrual cycle and oral contraceptives on

athletic performance. Sports Med. 1993 Dec;16(6):400-30. doi:

10.2165/00007256-199316060-00005. PMID: 8303141.