Hi everybody, it is good to be back.
My name is Hayley Nixon and we are joining Shona Hendricks from Coach Parry, our resident
sports scientist, to have a really important conversation today about why it's important
to actually track your menstrual cycle.
I know a lot of athletes don't do it, we should probably be paying a lot more attention to
it as females and utilizing what we can from knowing where we are in our phase.
So enjoy the conversation today.
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All right, so Shona today, we want to chat more about why it is important to track your
menstrual cycle because a lot of athletes don't seem to be doing it.
So, is there merit in actually tracking the cycle for each of us?
Yeah, Haley I think a bit of the basis of why we want to do that has been in some of
our previous videos, but it's really that, you know, I think the core of it is that your
menstrual cycle will affect the way you train.
And so it's important to understand that there is that effect and, and more than that, you
know, generally the female hormone physiology is pretty the same, okay, but across every
individual, the concentration of those hormones and the timing of those different effects
will differ greatly from me to you to the next sort of female and so it's really really
important for females to understand you know how that affects their training and so being
being able to to monitor their training, how they are feeling, what's happening on that
day, their nutrition is all really really important so that they can start making powerful
changes to optimize their training.
Yeah, for sure.
And I guess it also relates to like we said how they physically feeling but also emotionally
feeling and if you are tracking your your menstrual cycle or tracking your period, you're
got knowledge so you're ready to accept what's coming next.
Okay, I'm moving into x phase.
My training might change like this, but also I might start to feel sluggish or I might
start to feel a little bit more emotional.
So then instead of on day two of it wondering why you've been screaming at your coach you're
already prepared to know that.
Okay, I am going to get a bit like, nitty gritty in the next three days and let me try
and manage that a little bit better.
Versus always doing damage control.
So actually, expectation is easier, you know, then damage control.
Yeah, exactly, you're spot on.
And so it's not just the bad monitoring "Okay, I've started my period today, and I've ended
today" it's around, "I've started today, it's the start of my cycle.
Sure.
But this is what I'm feeling physically.
This is what's come out emotionally" which I think is what you're mentioning is completely
pertinent.
And also, this is what I did training wise, and this is how I recovered afterwards.
You know those those concepts are really, really important because, as you say, managing
those expectations.
Once you have sort of data set, you can look at trends and how you felt over that time
and the training that perhaps you know, if you train really really hard and didn't recover
well, you know at this particular phase or time.
You know then managing that moving forward and probably giving your coach a little bit
of leeway in terms of your, like you say, your outbursts and so on.
So there's a bit of expectation.
Managing those expectations and empowering that is always going to be so much more powerful
than guessing.
And I think also just for the athlete and the individual to take some responsibility
for it like not always to expect the coach to predict these things because it's quite
easy to make a note as an athlete in your training calendar or your training diary just
to say like, this is how I felt and then you can look back like most athletes will have
a training diary and they'll look back at a strength phase or a long endurance block.
And then to have those notes and go oh, okay, check that's happened three times in a row
now.
Each month, I get that same feeling or I get those same cravings.
And then you start to combat it, but actually to be taking a bit of autonomy as an athlete
as well to try and track those in your own way so that you can understand the cycles
more and start to work out how to like utilize them best.
Yeah, coaching is a science for sure.
It definitely is.
But there's so much art to it as well, right?
I mean, we always say that as coaches but as an athlete, that's an important component
is to, essentially you're taking that on and empowering yourself and not just expecting
your coaches to do it.
And we've spoken about this in previous videos, about why it's such a taboo topic, you know,
so yes start taking that and empowering yourself and giving that information to your coach.
So he or she can be bit making better decisions for your training specifically.
I think that's vital.
And I think every athlete should be monitoring these components.
I mean, it's a little bit embarrassing to say, but so I'm like almost 37 and I've been
racing internationally for probably since I was 24.
And I've never tracked my period.
And although I've been aware of it, maybe I got off lightly because I'm one of these
people who's never had huge ups and downs related to my menstrual cycle, so possibly,
that's why I've never taken it that seriously.
But who's to say that my performance and my recovery and my nutrition and all of that
couldn't have been better had I actually made the effort to track it.
But I also want to say that one of my youngest memories as a competitive athlete was the
coach saying, don't have your period while we're overseas racing, go and get some contraception
or whatever, you need to make sure you can skip that.
And that's what you were taught as a as a 26 year old.
Skip your period or "Oh, yay, I'm not getting my period anymore.
I must be training hard now."
That is not a good sign.
That's not what a woman should be thinking.
No, exactly!
As you say that red flags are going off, you know, exactly.
We were taught that and if you're training elites and Hayley you've competed at the highest
level, and if you weren't even doing that, I mean, can you imagine what general recreational
female runner or athletes is doing?
So, we're in necessarily taught periods are bad, but yes, don't have your period on match
day or race day.
You know, use some contraceptions to manipulate those things and, and if you're training elite
and you're and you're not getting your period, that's okay.
It's almost sometimes seemed like a bit of a blessing in disguise.
But it's really really REALLY not and in our upcoming videos that's really something we're
going to be focusing on a lot is around how not having your period is not okay.
And it's actually a very, very big health risk.
Yeah.
And so normalizing those conversations and you know, you mentioned how you weren't maybe
necessarily affected during your period quite intensely, you know, maybe bad cramps or mood
swings or whatever it is, but, you know, there's other physiological things that are happening
that you could have perhaps optimized in those times.
You're talking like nutrition, perhaps, you know, different phases of the cycle there's
an increased inflammatory response because you're bleeding.
And so you know you could have perhaps done things from a nutritional point of view to
help combat that.
Eat foods that would assist with that.
So stay away from you know, very sugary things and really that would have helped, you know,
perhaps your performance and probably mostly your recovery more than anything.
Yeah, for sure.
And I think that does lead to more interesting conversations we'll have done the line just
with your nutrition, with your hormone levels, with your training status because as females
we so susceptible to things going wrong in that regard, and then the negative impact
it will have on our training, but on our bodies physiologically, and whether it's from a health
and wellness perspective, or it's from trying to have children as a mom later on down the
line, now suddenly, you've rejected your period for 15 years, you thought you were having
an easy ride because you didn't get a menstrual cycle or at least you didn't get a period.
And now the one thing you want to do, you can't do anymore.
And so it's just misinformation and we're a little bit misguided.
But if we can, if we can liberate athletes on that, then I think we're going to have
healthier and stronger athletes for the future.
Yep, healthier, stronger, more well rounded, more able to live life to the full exactly
like I said.
If you were elite or running and now you want to have kids and you don't want that to have
played a role or affecting that and just the health of the athlete and the longevity of
that athlete.
So from an injury prevention point of view just all of that is so important and then
misinformation around not having your period is really really key for for female athletes
to start understanding and looking after themselves.
And then maybe just one more thing before we close in on that, are they apps that you
that you recommend?
I've used one or two before when I was dabbling but obviously didn't take them seriously enough,
but also I think it can just be as simple as writing a diary.
Yeah, exactly.
Good old paper and pen will work like a charm.
But you know if you've moved a little bit further into technology, yes, they are.
There are so many apps out there that you can utilize to monitor this and track it.
I think it's key.
You know, if you are just using your paper & pen sort of vibe, the thing you want to
look for is you want to monitor the start of your cycle and when it ends.
You want to monitor your symptoms.
How are you feeling?
So are you feeling bloated?
Are you feeling fatigued?
You want to monitor your training, what you're doing at that time and how you recovered from
it.
And definitely your nutrition at that time.
So, if you don't find an app that covers all of that, you know, yeah, paper and pen diary.
And then you want to get a coach that understands this and doesn't just, you know, teach you
the way you are treated and sort of be like don't have your period, you want to utilize
that information.
That information is power.
And so make sure that that's then influencing your training program moving forward.
Yeah, for sure.
Thanks, Shona.
I think it's highly important and obviously something we probably going to discuss more
in the future because, you know, from the age of our youngsters that are that are getting
their periods from an early age now, you know, all the way up through.
I think there's a lot more we can discuss, but it's certainly a really, really important
issue at the moment and I'm glad it's coming to the front.
Yeah, well Awesome, thanks Hales.
Thanks everybody for joining us.
It's awesome to have these conversations.
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