How lining up exercise with your menstrual cycle can make all the difference.

As women, we’ve fought to get to a place where we’re truly capable of competing with men in athleticism, the workforce, and academics. Not without some pushback and rejection, but we can all agree that there’s been some significant progress in the last century. However, one category that we’ve seemed to make very little progress in is how women’s appearance impacts their success and acceptance, whether outright or underlying. This pressure puts appearance and, more specifically, our body's size at the top of the list of our priorities and is often one of our most significant stressors.

I think we can all agree that this pressure can be exhausting and makes how our bodies feel take a backseat to how our bodies look. This leads to a mindset of urgency and intensity instead of intuition when approaching exercise and movement. This is problematic. We’re disconnecting from what our bodies are trying to communicate to our minds. We’re pushing past alarm bells going off in form of headaches, fatigue, and hunger and end up ignoring what our bodies need to thrive. What we forget is that our bodies are so freakin’ smart; we've just gotten too good at confusing what the core messages are trying to tell us.

Leaning into your intuition

So, where do we begin? How do we start listening to our body’s physical cues? I believe “Cycle Syncing” is a great way to learn to be more intuitive. If you’re unfamiliar with your menstrual cycle’s four phases, I encourage you to read my previous post, “ What is a menstrual cycle?” before continuing.

Our bodies are constantly sending direct messages to our brains. Your belly’s empty? Cue an uncomfortable sensation and a loud growl from your abdomen. Now, you know it’s time to eat. But what happens when we habitually ignore our bodies' direct messages? Our bodies and minds get confused, overcompensate, and recruit the wrong assistance in the form of hormones.

When our hormones fluctuate outside of what's normal, it wreaks havoc on our mood, energy, and overall health. This leaves us feeling defeated, like no amount of effort is ever good enough.

But, when we work with our bodies' needs instead of against them, things start to feel much easier. Syncing up your energy and exercise with your menstrual cycle can help you achieve whatever goals you have set out for yourself without so much resistance. So let’s start to work smart instead of hard because life is hard enough. Here is a general breakdown of how you can honor your body in each phase of your monthly cycle.

Menstrual phase

This is your first phase and, in my opinion, the most important phase to be diligent about honoring. Let’s explore why. During menstruation, you bleed, meaning your body’s working overtime shedding the lining of your uterus. This phase lasts anywhere from 3-7 days and is when levels of estrogen and progesterone are at their lowest.

Estrogen helps build other hormones like serotonin, dopamine epinephrine, and norepinephrine all of which help regulate your mood. Similarly, progesterone is responsible for regulating your mood, making you feel calm, and helping with cognition and inflammation. The resulting lack of both these hormones at the beginning of this phase includes experiencing irritability, fatigue, and brain fog. There’s also a higher risk of injury during high-impact exercise when you are bleeding your heaviest. The good news is around day 4 or 5 of your cycle, estrogen kicks back into gear and steadily increases. This means that the first few days of menstruation are an ideal time to focus on recovery and gentle movement. Movement like yin and restorative yoga, walking, hiking, leisurely bike rides, swimming, and anything else that keeps your heart rate moderate. If you overdo it during this time, it’s possible that you will interfere with your hormonal balance making symptoms like fatigue and prolonged recovery more prevalent. Instead, use this as an excuse to journal, read, and eat comfort food. Once estrogen wakes from its short slumber, you’ll be eager to dive straight back into more intense activity. Which brings us to our Follicular phase.

Follicular phase

Once you’ve reached the end of your bleed and begin your Follicular phase, your estrogen levels steadily increase. Estrogen has long been stigmatized as an emotion-inducing hormone, which isn’t necessarily wrong; it just might not be the type of emotions you were expecting it to be associated with. As mentioned before, estrogen helps to regulate neurotransmitters that help produce serotonin, dopamine, epinephrine, and norepinephrine, hormones that help you feel happy, alert, energetic, and even confident. Knowing that these are the effects of estrogen, paired with the information that estrogen steadily increases all the way until ovulation (approximately day 14 of your cycle), makes it easy enough to imagine what types of exercise you should focus on around this time. This is a perfect time to lift a little heavier, run a little bit faster, and challenge yourself. Whatever your favorite way is to move your body, take this time to up the ante. If you’re a yoga practitioner, try out a few power classes. If you like lifting weights, try and lift more towards your maximum range of weight. There have been clinical studies that prove this is the most optimal time to gain muscle in comparison with the second half of your cycle, so this is a great opportunity to level up. It’s important to note that you might not feel up for this level of activity right away, and it’s always best to go with how you’re feeling. Women’s cycles vary in length, so you may be feeling energetic and eager to move your body on day 4 or 5 of your cycle, or it could take a bit longer. It’s all about using your hormones to your advantage, so make sure to really listen to what your body’s telling you.

Ovulatory phase

Ovulation itself is technically only one day of the month, but the ovulatory phase is considered to last approximately four days. Your follicular phase should be a really nice build-up to these few days where you can really go all out. During this time, you are on fire. You’ll typically be your most social and energetic with both estrogen and testosterone levels at their peak. This is the most optimal time to approach your activities with an “all-out” attitude. You’ll want to gravitate towards HIIT workouts, intense cardio, and use your body’s energy to lift your heaviest. If you’re competitive, this will also be the best time to schedule a race, competition, and any other social or intense gathering. This phase will be the last opportunity of your cycle to optimize high-energy activities and after this period, there will be a palpable shift in energy leading to the second more chill half of your cycle.

Luteal phase

Finally, after ovulation, we enter the last phase of our cycle and typically our longest, the Luteal phase. After ovulation estrogen levels significantly drop, testosterone lowers, and progesterone levels rise. Progesterone is a very calming hormone that helps with anxiety and keeps our feelings a little more level in general. You’ll also have a higher overall body temperature and a higher resting heart rate, making intense exercise much more difficult. This means that this is a wonderful opportunity for relaxed activities. Try taking more walks (preferably in nature), hikes, moderate to a low-intensity style of yoga, and try lifting lower weights with higher sets. It’s smart to avoid hot yoga or any other activities featuring a hot environment, as well as any type of activity that considerably raises your heart rate. One really great thing to remind yourself during this phase is that your metabolism is quite a bit higher, so the need to move your body is less prominent. Towards the end of this phase leading up to your bleed, you’ll likely start to feel much more lethargic and have a bigger appetite, and it’s really important to honor these inclinations. It’s your body’s way of finding balance.

Conclusion

The takeaway from all of this is that women live on a monthly hormonal clock and are designed to live in synchronicity with our hormones. This isn’t even about being your most productive; it’s about feeling your best. It’s also important not to treat this approach like a strict regime that only adds another thing to your long list of self-care aspirations. Instead, see if you can let this be a way of giving yourself a guilt-free break when you need one! Let this be an opportunity for you to be more connected and in-tuned with your glorious femininity and try your best to have fun with this framework allowing yourself to embrace the opportunity to keep things fluid and dynamic.

Exercise for your Cycle