Programming tips:
The most important thing to take away from this topic of the month, is that you can’t manage what you don’t measure. The more you can track the more you know when it comes to your menstrual cycle. It is important to note that everything mentioned in this article is based on an ideal scenario that may not necessarily play out exactly for you.
Instead, you have to understand how to track these variables and get a clearer picture on what might be going on. Most importantly educate yourself so you know that these fluctuations are completely normal and you are not at the mercy of outside forces, out of your control.
When it comes to measuring and tracking, how you go about doing this is completely up to you. Certain people use apps designed for tracking their menstrual cycle, whilst others simply use a notebook.
During the first half of the menstrual cycle estrogen is the dominate player, which improves the body’s ability to use carbohydrates as a fuel source, connective tissue strength, muscle building, tendon strength, mental focus, mood, energy, also whilst supporting appetite control. There is also an increase in endurance and a peak in maximum voluntary force production capacity.
All the above things sound like a great time to be pushing hard with training, which is what is recommended. This is where a women can tolerate more volume and recover much better, so make the most of it! Normally you should be ramping up volume significantly by around 20-30% through this phase, which may mean the addition of extra exercises in a session, or simply adding in extra sets.
During the latter part of the menstrual cycle, this is where things start to turn. Whilst there is an increase in metabolic rate, there is also an increase in hunger and cravings and generally a decrease in mood, energy levels and cardiovascular endurance in training. Generally speaking, this is a good time to be pulling back slightly with your training and potentially increasing your calories to accommodate for the change in metabolic rate.
To take it a step further you can potentially overreach and push harder through the first half of the menstrual cycle where you can tolerate it, then back off completely through the second half of the cycle whilst increasing food intake. The increase in food doesn’t just mean better recovery from the previous 2 weeks of intense training, it also means more room for micronutrients which anecdotally seem to help appetite control and energy. It can also be good to experiment with slightly lower carbohydrates, due to the body’s preference to utilise fat as a fuel source, but you may find this to be unnecessary, particularly if training is scaled back to more moderate intensity work and more cardiovascular based programming is used instead.
In essence you are playing with a 2 week push and a 2 week pull cycle of training. Where you push hard for a couple of weeks before pulling back for a couple of weeks with volume. It is also good to choose exercises that don’t require much coordination or balance, and maybe from an additional standpoint not loading up as much in the end ranges of motion due to the decrease of connective tissue healing in the latter part of the menstrual cycle. There are of course many ways you can manipulate this and scale it up and down, this is generally the trend to follow.
Another rule you can follow is through the luteal phase, or the last part of the cycle is a shift more towards an aerobic conditioning focus, then the rest of your training into a maintenance phase. The improved aerobic capacity that you will build through this phase will only improve your ability to push even harder when the next follicular phase or first half of the menstrual cycle rolls around.
A final note is when looking at things like bloating, fluid retention and changes in mood, these things might be out of your nutritional and training control to a degree. But now that you are more consciously aware why they happen you can go a very long way to reducing the overall unpredictability of the situation. Gaining a sense of control and understanding over the body can go a long way to consistently being able to stick to a plan, which ultimately is the most important piece to any well-designed program.
References
- Ganbaru Method, Eugene Teo, Published March 2020, Accessed October 26th Programming for women – Ganbaru Method
