Women should tailor training to menstruation cycles
For female athletes, menstruation has been viewed mostly as an inconvenience; it has to be endured, often with accompanying pain and discomfort.
It is not uncommon for sports studies to largely exclude women and disregard the impact their periods have on their performance.
Georgie Bruinvels, a British sports scientist at Orreco sports
performance consultancy who has a PhD in iron deficiency and menstrual cycles in sports performance, has set about changing this. She was as an adviser to the US women’s soccer team that won the 2019 Women’s World Cup in July.
According to The Times, there is mounting research to show that a menstrual cycle can have a big impact on a woman’s performance. Bruinvels helps female athletes develop an understanding of how their body responds to training during the menstruation cycle and tailoring their diets around this.
“Hormonal fluctuations can affect things like biomechanics, laxity of ligaments and muscular firing patterns,” Bruinvels told The Guardian.
Diet can play an important role as well. During the first half of the menstrual cycle, a woman’s body has the tendency to use carbohydrates more effectively, while fats are used more effectively during the second half of her cycle.
In terms of training, Bruinvels says new research points to the benefits of strength training during the first half of the menstrual cycle as the body adapts and recovers better during this time.
Bruinvels is in talks with the British Fed Cup team and the Women’s Tennis Association to develop’tools a player s needs that following are tailored the to success of the US soccer team.
She has also developed an app called FitrCoach, which assists female athletes in tracking their menstrual cycles, something Bruinvels says she is surprised most female athletes don’t do. Using this new information and tools available to them, athletes can tailor their training and diet to work with their period instead of against it.