What to Do If You Think Your Period Is Affecting Your Workout
Is it harder to run fast and lift weights during your period? Many athletes say yes, but science is lagging behind, so it’s hard to tell if there is a real loss of performance or what to do about it. Here are some tips from top athletes to help.
BBC Sport interviewed several elite athletes, including world record holder in women’s marathon Paulo Radcliffe, about what they do when something important (like your Olympic race) falls on the worst day of the month.
Radcliffe’s hint is simple: “I broke the world record [during my period] so it can’t be that much of a hindrance, but that’s undoubtedly why my stomach ached in the last third of the race and I didn’t feel as comfortable as I did. could do “.
Jessica Judd, a middle-distance runner, says her performance varies greatly depending on where she is in the cycle; therefore, she said, she ran the 3000 meters in 9 minutes 15 seconds, and a week later ran the same distance in 9 minutes. At a pivotal race in 2013, the team doctors prescribed norethistrone to delay her period. Radcliffe says the medics should have known it would make her work worse, not better.
She told BBC Sport that the doctors’ decision was based on the little scientific knowledge they had about it, but they just don’t have the whole story. There have been no large studies on how to control the menstrual cycle to improve athletic performance because only a small number of elite athletes have even tried to do so.
Recent research suggests that your cycle probably does not affect strength or aerobic performance, but endurance can be affected in the second half of your cycle (that is, the two weeks immediately before your period). The research is conducted mainly on women with natural cycles, so if you are taking pills, the scientific evidence is inconclusive.
So what can you do about it? While we wait for new scientific data to emerge, learning how your performance changes over the course of a month will be far more useful than making a plan based on snippets of research that do not provide a definitive answer to the question. Here are some more tips that might help.
- Be careful with yourself. Don’t assume that you will be performing poorly just because it is the time of the month. Many things can affect your sports performance, and you can get a better return on investment by focusing on these other aspects.
- Keep a workout diary to keep track of what’s going on. Maybe your mile time does a really dip every 28 days, or perhaps your workout is harder when you’re spastic, but your time to finish is the same. Taking careful notes can also help you figure out if there is something you can do to minimize your symptoms, such as whether it helps you drink more on those tough days.
- Tell your trainer / coach or change your workouts if you know you won’t be able to do your normal work or lift the same weights these days.
Unfortunately, whether you tell a coach or a teammate, the athletes commented that it is a double-edged sword. This helps keep the topic out of taboos so that athletes can compare notes and learn from each other. Badminton champion Gail Emms, on the other hand, remembers her teammate who had a period when she lost a doubles competition. A teammate’s partner (male), she says, “is still angry” because he thinks that is why they lost.
Curse or myth – do periods affect productivity? | BBC Sport