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Posted in: Workouts / Workout Programs

Workout program adapted to menstrual cycle

Dear FB-Team,

a few days ago I watched a documentary about scientists researching about exercise/training and the menstrual cycle.

Apparently many women who exercise lose their menstrual cycle, but it's very uncommon to talk about it.

Actually it happened to me, too, in a phase, where I losing weight, eating according to weight watchers and working out with fitness blender. I lost about 8 kg within a year, always ate between 1500-2000kcal a day and did FB-Fit and went to work by bike almost every day 15km back and forth. So actually that was a lot of exercise and a diet but not like really hard, I think. Still I lost my period at a weight of 65kg (which is totally average for my height) and got a bone bruise in my foot, so I had to go low impact and I stopped dieting. So over two years my weight went back to the set point where it used to be, and my period came back at a weight of 70kg. So I thought, well, that's just the weight, where my body works best, so I'll better accept that and I'm fine with it at the moment.

(And just to clarify, I don't blame fitness blender nor the weight watchers, I still work out with fitness blender and love it, I just listen more to my body)

But the documentary still made me wonder. Would I have lost my period, if I had worked out according to my cycle?

They found out, that women, who do the hard training units like HIIT, interval training and harder Strength Training during the first half of the cycle, and do basic endurance, Stretching, technics, yoga, pilates etc. in the second half, kept their period and increased their fitness levels, whereas in the group of women, who worked out the other way round (harder training in the second half of the cycle), many lost their period and their fitness levels stagnated.

Unfortunately the documentary and the studies are in German, so I won't post them here. But I thought, could you maybe design a Training program adapted to the menstrual cycle? Or maybe a pool of workouts that are good for the first half, and a pool that are good for the second half, so we don't have to do the guess work?

I think that would be very helpful and interesting.

Thanks in advance and thanks for all your work,

Marie