How to Train with Your Menstrual Cycle (and other cycles, too!)

Have you ever been curious about how your menstrual cycle affects your training?

Have you ever tried to sync your workouts with your period?

Let’s talk about it! The relationship between periods and fitness as well as the general impact of the different phases of our period have been receiving some much-deserved attention on social media lately. People who menstruate know firsthand just how much hormonal cycles can affect how we feel. So it makes tons of sense that periods also affect how we exercise!

This blog is an exploration of the topics that my upcoming course, Train with Your Cycle, will cover in depth. We’ll be diving into the nuances of all the cycles: nervous system, menstrual, moon, creative, seasonal, grief, etc with the goal of learning how to understand and support the nuances of your particular cycles. 

Different phases of our menstrual cycles can yield dramatically different outcomes and feelings depending on what our body is feeling naturally prepared to handle.

Tuning into your menstrual cycle helps build body awareness–it’s a great way to practice listening to your body. On top of that, learning about cycles in life (and there are so many more than just menstruation) is a powerful way to grow our thinking, supporting our mental health and nervous system resilience! By listening to our body and working in harmony with it, we’re better meeting the needs of both our bodies and our minds.

Ready to learn more? Let’s dive in.

How Is Training with Your Cycle Helpful?

The Evidence for Cycle Syncing

Research suggests that timing your workouts with an appropriate phase of your menstrual cycle can actually improve performance outcomes.

This study took a small group of women and split them into two groups. One group did a strength training protocol that was random, with no relation to their menstrual cycle. The other group followed a similar plan, but they synced it up with their menstrual cycle. By the end of the study period, the researchers found that the women who had synced their training to their cycle showed more improvements to their overall strength compared to the women who had trained with no timing changes. That’s incredibly cool!

Other studies have shown less conclusive evidence about performance outcomes from cycle syncing. This literature review suggests that it is possible to build muscle in all of the different menstrual phases, which is a relief since we all have different variations of our cycles. The research is still developing, and we encourage you to see how different approaches feel for your own body. As we’ll talk about below, keep in mind there are many other benefits to learning to train with your cycle that go beyond getting physically stronger!

How Cycles Affect Everyday Adventures

Now that we’ve talked through some of the research, let’s go through three stories.

Story 1: Caught Off Guard

Two of my close friends and I embark on a big day! They’re visiting town and I’m showing them one of my favorite spots. I’ve done this trail so many times, it’s a tough one but I know I can handle it. Along the way, I notice the elevation gain feels so much harder than usual. I’m having fun catching up with my friends, but my mood starts to dip. I struggle my way through the final miles back to the car, I’m feeling totally worked. On the way home, I find myself in a loop of self-criticism: why did this familiar hike go so poorly? I’ve been hiking a lot lately, am I not as fit and strong as I thought I was? Does this mean I’m going to have a horrible time at that big backcountry trip I have coming up? The cloud of frustrated and disappointed feelings hovers in my brain.

Story 2: Flowing with the Flow

My husband and I are planning a four-day backpacking trip. As we get closer to the date, I realize I’m going to be in the later days of my menstrual cycle, when my energy is often low. Fortunately, this trip is a basecamp-style trip where we can mostly pick and choose the level of adventure we want each day. I make sure to build in some different options, some longer and some shorter, so I have flexibility based on how I’m feeling each day. I also pack a little more food than usual, since I’m usually more hungry during this time. Sure enough, on day 3, my period arrives and the low energy hits me hard. We decide to shorten our hike that day from an all-day adventure to half a day. When we get back to camp, I eat some of my extra food. Both these choices help me feel a lot better for our final hike out, and I have more space to enjoy the beauty of my surroundings and feel grateful for this awesome adventure.

Story 3: Go-Mode Returns

I have a favorite local hike that I like to do as many times as possible during the summer. It’s a steep climb that gets up above treeline quickly and rewards the hiker with big views at the top. Last season, I hiked it a few times early in the season as I was getting my summer legs under me. Then, just as I was expecting to feel my strength accumulate and the hiking feel easier, I hiked it on a low-energy day. Instead of feeling strong, I was dragging. And discouraged. Shouldn’t this be feeling easier by now? Thankfully, I was able to recall my cyclical knowledge (which is changing these days as I move into perimenopause, more on that in the TWYC course) and recognize that the low energy might be hormone related instead of fitness-related. And sure enough, a few days later when I returned to the trail, I felt motivated, strong, and able to climb with much more ease. My husband and I have come to call this phase Go-Mode, and it’s so nice to be able to trust that it is coming when I’m in a low-energy moment.  

Ok, so, these stories show that tuning into our cycles matters… But which phases are which? What’s going on behind the scenes during a menstrual cycle?

Menstrual Cycle Basics

Essentially, we can break down one full menstrual cycle into four phases. We can think of these phases as analogous to other cycles we might be more familiar with, too.

Remember there’s lots of nuance and individual variation in menstruation. And lots of science and physiology behind each of these, too! In the upcoming Train with Your Cycle course, I’ll be helping you learn the nuances of your particular cycles (menstrual and otherwise). For now, let’s focus on the basics and the broad strokes.

Phase One: Follicular/Spring/Budding

The first phase is when the body prepares for ovulation. Your system gears everything up for a fertile period. This phase is similar to spring, when buds and flowers begin to become more lush. Your energy will begin to shift from its cyclical low point and rise. Things will start to click into place a little more.

Phase Two: Ovulation/Summer/In Bloom

In many ways, this phase is the peak. It’s like the height of summer or the full moon. You might feel your best: energized, sharp, and most creative during this phase. For most people, this is the best time to push workouts and challenge yourself in other areas of life.

Phase Three: Luteal/Fall/Harvest

After ovulation, your body enters the luteal phase, or the third phase. Here, energy will move away from a peak and start to fade toward winter. This is like fall: the weather is still nice and the high of summer still feels nearby, but you start to feel the chill in the air.

Phase Four: Menstrual/Winter/Fertile Void

Lastly, the fourth phase is the menstrual phase, the one most of us are most familiar with. Your uterus sheds its lining if the cycle does not result in pregnancy. Like winter, this phase is a time for rest, refueling, and recovering. Your body is working harder than usual to replenish blood and nutrients lost through menstruation (especially for those with heavy menstrual flow), so this is an important time for giving yourself lots of grace and space.

Keep in mind these phases aren’t necessarily seven days a piece, but will vary by your typical cycle length as well as one cycle to the next. It’s also important to remember that menstrual cycles are cycles of continuous, dynamic change rather than sudden shifts. Most hormonal fluctuations build and recede gradually, so even within any one of these phases, there’s variation. Remember: there’s lots of nuance!

The Benefits of Thinking Cyclically

Cycle syncing isn’t just a tool to benefit our training and adventures. It’s a way to practice recognizing and rolling with the cycles throughout our lives.

We receive so much messaging that life is supposed to be linear. We tend to think growth happens linearly: we start in one place, and we continuously learn, grow, get stronger, get smarter…always up and up. This idea is closely linked with capitalistic structures, too: we’re told we should always be growing and always have more, and any setbacks or downturns are bad and cause for alarm. But that’s not a realistic or helpful way of thinking. 

This is one of my favorite illustrations to help make this point:

Linear thinking spills over into how we think about our bodies, too. We often expect them to be the same or, if they do change, we want it to be in a linear growth direction, instead of constantly changing and cycling.

I see this a lot with fitness in my own life, and with people following my fitness programs: we’re growing and getting stronger, then something happens, and we fall off or have some kind of setback. The key here is to adjust, learning how to ride out those rough times until we’re feeling good and energized again. And building the trust in your own cyclical rhythm so you can even enjoy the slower phases, because you know the energetic ones are coming soon!  

If we look at nature, we can notice cycles everywhere. We see short cycles, like the 24-hour flow from daytime to night, and longer cycles, like the changing of the seasons. Within our own emotions and bodies, we have cycles too. Periods are just one among many.

Learning to flow with ups and downs helps us accept the cyclical nature of life and our growth processes. This helps us to not just accept the downward parts of a cycle, but also to find the beauty and moments of learning within them. This work helps us care for our present and future selves by picking aligned tasks, adventures, and workouts for where we are in each cycle: creative, nervous system, menstrual, seasonal, and more.

Connecting the Menstrual Cycle with the Nervous System

What is a Nervous System Wave?

Our nervous system has a cycle of activation and deactivation that we all experience regularly, sometimes called a nervous system wave. In fact, this cycle very closely mirrors the menstrual cycle.

When something stressful or emotionally activating happens to us, we launch into the first phase, similar to the follicular phase, a waxing crescent moon, or the season of spring. Energy is just kicking into gear, steadily growing. In a stressful situation, this is like when you first realize that something stressful is happening, and you’re gathering up your energy and figuring out how to respond and problem solve.

That energy grows and reaches a peak through something like the ovulatory phase, like summer or a full moon. This is the phase where you’re in the full swing of action. In stress, this is when you’re experiencing the peak of adrenaline. The adrenaline fuels an extra burst of strength and mental clarity.

After this peak, the adrenaline and energy starts to wear off, like entering the luteal phase. As we pass the peak of the experience, we start to settle. This is also like the season of fall, or the waning after a full moon.

Finally, we reach the integration phase, which is like the menstrual phase, winter, or new moon. This moment is critical to processing the stressful or productive period that we just experienced, and renews us to re-enter another turn of the cycle. In this phase, we aren’t as energetic and action-oriented.

Here’s a quick illustration:

Additionally, the different phases of our menstrual cycles have different nervous system predispositions and potential for healing. For example, we have extra neuroplasticity when we’re in Luteal and Menstrual phases, so might find ourselves having an easier time shifting patterns & creating new neuropathways during these phases. We’ll be going into this and more inside of Train with Your Cycle.  

Challenges in Our Cycles

Our culture tends to overvalue the first half of the cycle when energy is growing and peaking, praising us for being in “go mode.” It’s easy to internalize this and try to stay in that high-energy mode as long as possible. This even shows up in how we navigate changing of the seasons from summer to fall.

We have fewer tools to navigate the downturn of cycles, when energy starts to fade and reset. This means a lot of people really struggle with both the settling and integration phases of a nervous system cycle, which can show up in our bodies as also struggling with the luteal and menstrual phases of menstruations.

Just like fallow periods of energy/productivity can be devalued or even stigmatized, its analog in menstruation, the bleeding phase, is also frequently stigmatized. If you struggle with these phases of your menstrual and/or nervous system cycle, know that you are definitely not alone. And also, know that you can learn and incorporate new tools to navigate those experiences!

Learning to honor the importance of the deactivation and integration of a nervous system wave or a menstrual cycle is a critical piece in navigating those cycles with more balance and resilience. It’s a little bit like the new moon: we don’t criticize the moon for its absence, and instead we appreciate how the darker sky allows us to better see and appreciate the stars.

Getting acquainted with our menstrual cycle, a physical cycle, can be a helpful starting point into learning mental and emotional cycles like the nervous system wave. All these cycles feed into and support each other: they’re tools that help orient us to what’s happening in our body so that we can make informed choices based on that information.

Learn More about Menstrual Cycles, Fitness, and Nervous System Tools

How is this landing for you? Does this excite you and make you want to learn more?

If you’re feeling energized about this topic, I’ve been working hard to redesign one of my favorite courses: Train with Your Cycle. I am so excited to create a space to talk positively about menstruation (cycles are superpowers!) and share these incredibly valuable tools with you.

In the Train with Your Cycle course, we’ll be exploring how to understand and make the most of all of the different phases in our cycles. Nervous system cycles and menstrual cycles are great places to practice this, but we’ll also be covering moon cycles, grief cycles, seasonal cycles and the creative growth cycle. This article just scratches the surface: we’ll go so much deeper into the nuance! My goal is to help you get to know the nuances of your cycles – since our bodies and life experiences are all so different, getting to know our individual rhythms is important. 

This course is not just for people who menstruate. Menstrual cycle skillfulness is valuable for anyone who menstruates and anyone who knows someone who menstruates! Plus, we’ll help people with any and all bodies learn tools for navigating nervous system cycles and how to tune into your body.

The course begins on January 21, with sessions (mostly) every other week for three months. 
Learn more about Train with Your Cycle or sign up right this way! We can’t wait to see you there.