How menstrual cycle awareness can improve your athletic performance.

There are many coaches out there talking about the hormonal fluctuations throughout our menstrual cycle and how that SHOULD make us feel. Whilst I love that level of awareness being raised about menstruation and how it affects athleticism - what I don’t love is the cookie-cutter one size fits all narrative.

Every menstruating person's experience of their cycle is different, not just month to month but throughout the cycles of their life too and this expectation that we should be able to peak around ovulation and taper around menstruation - in my opinion, brings another shame stick for women to beat themselves with. Because we don’t all experience those typical energies and having that expectation of ourselves can in fact end up being really limiting.

What’s more important is, you getting to know your own cycle first. I started tracking mine because I wanted to better understand how and when to train. I knew that the hashtag ‘Just Be Consistent’ narrative wasn’t based on the many variables we encounter during menstruating and that there was a power and energy in discovering my own natural cycle and how I could harness that power.

When I say that experience has been transformative I’m not exaggerating. Previous to opening my eyes to the power of my own cycle I was training 3-5 days per week, every single week following a strength program with a deload every 8-10 weeks- pretty normal right? Should’ve got results, right? Wrong… What I found instead was that I was consistent for a while and then I fell off the wagon, again and again, and again. I’d fight against the exhaustion and the overwhelm but that just made it worse and whilst my physical body grew leaner and I guess stronger... Do you know what else grew - my stress levels! Whereas my mental health along with my overall well-being didn’t.

I knew there had to be another way, I’d always been interested in how menstrual cycles affected athletic performance and so I started doing some research. I listened to my clients and I heard them having a similar experience to me. At first, I tried following standard advice - so I’d go for PBs and train really really hard for the first half of my cycle up to day 14 and then I’d do a little bit less in the second half - but it made little difference because in all honesty that’s based on a typical cycle and at that point my cycle, like many others, was far from typical. I also wasn’t tuning into my energies, or listening to myself, and whilst I thought I was listening to my cycle I was once again looking for that consistent workout program with no variables, when in reality I soon learned that there were many variables to consider

My eyes were opened when I read the amazing book Wild Power and then trained with the incredible Ashleigh from Womb Power. I started to tap into my own cycle, understanding the seasons, the power and the connection it brought over the biology - that’s when I started to see real change.

I started to understand what my consistency looked like, what my signals and signs were, what I needed at each stage and how to hear my own red flags and I found not only a deeper understanding- but also a deeper connection with myself. Then my love for training and movement returned.

I’ve since gone on to practice menstrual cycle awareness with my clients, staff and now other coaches and they all have the same response - at first - wow this is super confronting and a bit out there and then - oh my god my clients are getting amazing results - my life has changed - my retention is up and not only can I hear what my clients really need - they are aware of it too and that is one hella powerful relationship!

I’m so deeply passionate about this work that I’ve gone on to write it into my coaching women course. I’m still on my own journey but honestly, this needs to be heard, if you’re someone who menstruates and especially if you’re someone who doesn’t. When you start to understand the experience of cyclic people better, you’ll not only change the trajectory of your business - you’ll change your own life too!

Currently, my course is just for coaches but I will very soon be releasing a version for everyone. If you’re a coach and you want to know more you can join our waitlist for applications that are opening later this week!

If you’re not a coach and you want to know how to inform your own practice let us know here and we'll let you know when we do more MCA specific content!