Menstrual Cycle Tracking

Why Monitor Menstrual Cycle?

Regardless of how much exercise training a female athlete is undertaking; menstrual cycles should be reasonably regular. If this is not the case, then prompt action is important to identifying any underlying medical issue, or imbalance in training load, nutrition and recovery.

Fluctuating hormones are driving the adaptions to training, and can have large impact on the athlete’s emotions and mood.

The athlete’s capacity to tolerate and adapt to training loads will change at different phase of her cycle, monitoring the current and historical menstrual cycle, and adapting load and recovery based on the individual cycle, is essential to predict when the athlete will be physically and/or psychological tired and most at risk, or when athletes will be ready to perform and adapt to heavy workloads.

Monitor. Understand. Optimize

By closely monitoring menstrual cycles, you’ll be able to better understand how each athlete adapts to workload during each of menstrual phases, and: 

• Target high intensity training in the early follicular phase
• Focus on strength development during the late follicular and ovulation phases
• Implement knee stability exercises to reduce the risk of ACL injuries during ovulation phase
• Explain mood changes and disrupted wellness response during luteal phases
• Plan recovery phases during the late luteal phase
• Prevent relative energy deficiency in sport (RED-S) by early detection of menstrual irregularity/change nature menstruation
• Detect irregular, light or loss of menses, which requires medical referral to exclude medical conditions and support diagnosis of relative energy deficiency in sport RED-S (part of female athlete triad)
• Detect PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome), a medical condition that may require medical attention