Womens cycle and training patterns

Our hormonal cycle can make a difference each week to our training in the gym.

These conditions have the ability to interfere with our health, wellbeing and body composition. It may affect the way we metabolise nutrients from food, our energy levels, motivation, sleep patterns and our ability to tolerate stress!!!

Our hormone patterns fluctuate and can manipulate our training protocols to get the most out of our training.

Each week you feel different, recover differently and have different energy levels due to your cycle.

The following phases are a guideline to what you should base your training sessions on so as you don’t beat your head around.
I hear so many of you self doubt and may comment that you feel weak, you feel flat, you don’t think you worked hard enough because you didn’t pull up sore, or you pulled up too sore etc.

I want you all to stop being so hard on yourselves and just work on the training session you’re in and forget about what you have done or what you will do next time.

Just do your best on the day and don’t compare day to day workouts.

This is another good reason to always change up your sessions from the order you do your weights in or the amount or reps or the weight load.

Days 1 -5: Menstruation

These should be lighter sessions, work on technique more at this time so you shift your focus and don’t worry about how much you’re lifting. Your cardio sessions should be lighter than normal as well due to energy levels being a bit lower.
Let your body guide you over these days, yoga or pilates would be a good activity as well.
By the 5^th day energy levels will increase due to your Estrogen starting to rise again.

Days 6 – 16: Late follicular phase and ovulation

Now you’ll notice large energy levels as estrogen rises.
Incorporate steady state cardio – keeping a higher heart rate training session.
Good time to train with heavier weight, can do more reps per set but still have short rest period in between sets.
Go for the big compound movements (using more muscle groups per exercise) such as deadlifts, squats, bench press, chin ups, lunges.
Keep intensity high as women recover quickly.

Days 17 – 28: Luteal phase

Energy levels are high at the beginning of this phase so keep intensity high and still incorporate HIIT. Weight sessions should be high reps (15-20) but less weight.
As you are about to approach your period your co-ordination and balance decreases, so be aware.
Core temperature increases so be mindful of training in the heat.
Towards the end of this phase your menstruation energy expenditure increases and so does your energy requirements. This is when sugary, salty and fatty food cravings start to kick in, but this is when the body starts to store more fat, so limit your carbohydrate intake where you can. Eat regularly within 2.5-3 hours making sure protein serve is 100gms and fill up on as many vegetables/salad as you like.
Days 25ish – menstruation – listen to your body, if all good keep the load of weights up but intensity level can be light.

Women need to realise that throughout a month a lot of things change within us, so the fluid level in our bodies can change, the energy levels etc.

So comparing week to week things, such as what load you are lifting or what you are weighing in on the scales can change significantly.

Try to change your focus to a monthly comparison and maybe that might help you staying on track, becoming less stressed and being happy within yourselves for just giving each session a go and eating well as much as you can!

If you are wanting some more guidance – I run a program that helps women train effectively with their cycle.

#lookafteryourself

Womens cycle and training patterns