Listen in on my conversation with Liya Leng of Bump & Baby about my advice for running during pregnancy and postpartum:
Running & Exercise During and After Pregnancy
There are a LOT of mixed messages out there about pregnancy and exercise, and the hard truth is that recommendations DO vary from person to person. Your previous exercise experience, pregnancy symptoms, other health conditions, and lifestyle will all affect what constitutes safe, supportive exercise during pregnancy and postpartum.
That being said, I tried to compile the best tips that nearly everyone can use to help create your movement routines during and after pregnancy.
I’ve put the information in the video above into an easy to use free PDF, grab it below!
As always, if you have questions about your training - email me at caitlin@tendathletics.com
What You Need to Know About Running & Your Period
If you ask most female runners about their period, they’ll probably tell you they hate it because every month they feel shitty for a week and their training suffers. You may even hear stories of races “sabotaged” by a period ... oh the nerve!
Yes, periods can really suck. But what if you didn’t have to fight against it all the time? What if I told you that understanding your cycle and embracing adjustments to your training can actually improve your performance and contribute to your longevity as an athlete?
I spoke with Dr. Constance Ohlinger, a naturopathic doctor who specializes in womxn’s health and hormone balancing, to get all the details on how understanding your hormone and menstrual cycle can help you improve your training.
Dr. Ohlinger is currently leading a year-long course called Bleed Like a Badass: It’s a gender inclusive and holistic virtual course aimed at reimagining our menstrual cycles as a source of self empowerment. Enrollment is ongoing and some features are free or donation based. The month of March will focus on Athletic Performance & The Cycle, so check it out now!
Q: What do you think runners need to know about how their hormones can affect their training?
I think the top thing to remember is that hormones aren't always just "that annoying thing that happens each month"- there are some wonderful effects they can have as far as giving us good energy, muscle building, helping with restorative sleep, you name it! But I think we can get bogged down a lot with the negatives. Instead of writing off our cycles as a hindrance to performance, what if we asked ourselves, "How can I use these monthly changes to my advantage?" When we start thinking in that way the possibilities for using our natural cycles for optimizing performance can be pretty mind-blowing!
Q: Is it true that your performance may be limited during menstruation?
Yes and no. It goes back to that mindset of, "How can I use this part of my cycle to my advantage?" The premenstrual week is a great example. Culturally, there's a lot of talk out there about how we feel pretty crappy in this phase of our cycles. There can be a lot of cramps and joint pain, which don't exactly make us feel great all the time (a totally valid feeling to honor!). We also can have more intense emotions here (which often get written off...but that's another soap box for another day!).
But this premenstrual week isn't all bad! Progesterone is high in this time, which does cause some extra joint mobility (among many other things). While this extra mobility can be a cause of more joint pain- if we instead ask, "How do we use this to our advantage?" then the answer is quite simple! This is a GREAT week to work on mobility.
If we can get creative about adjusting our workouts each week to our needs then I don't think anything can hold us back!
Q: How can you optimize your training to meet the fluctuations of your cycle?
I think the first step to optimizing training with our cycles is to start with self-awareness in our bodies. Practice self-awareness before every workout. I call this the "Naturopathic Warm-Up" and it's just a few deep breaths, eyes closed, and a quick body scan before we dive into the workout.
Ask yourself:
"How do I feel today?"
"How do my joints feel today?"
“How is my energy today?"
Over time, this practice will allow you to be your own coach, your own smart-watch, and even better - your best athletic self!
In my class Bleed Like a Badass, we talk through all of the details- there are times that we need longer warm-ups to prevent ligament injury; there are times where long-distance cardio might be easier on our bodies; there are times when estrogen is high and we have a great opportunity to go all out on muscle building workouts! At the end of the day, if we listen to our bodies, they will likely tell us the same answer if we can practice using that intuition.
Q: Do you have any tips for eating, sleeping, or other habits you can adopt during certain times of your cycle?
I definitely recommend more dynamic and longer warm-ups in the week of and leading up to ovulation (that's usually around Day 14-16 for most women. Remember, Day 1 is the first day of your period). There is consistent research showing we have an increase in ligament tears (particularly ACL tears) that week because that high-estrogen time can make our ligaments more fragile.
Menses week - the week we bleed - is a great time for replenishing nutrients, especially iron. I highly recommend cooking in a cast-iron pot that week if you have one, or talking to your doctor (or naturopath!) about a good non-constipating iron supplement if you have a tendency for iron deficiency anemia.
Q: What do you think men can take away from learning more about how hormones affect training and athletic performance?
I think it's important for everyone (including cis-men) to understand that every body is going to have different needs when it comes to physical, nutritional and mental well-being, just as a start.
Cis-men should know that they have hormonal cycles too! Their testosterone is the primary player in their cycles, and male cycles vary tremendously in time (sometimes they last 2 weeks, sometimes months long!).
Most consistently though, we know that testosterone is highest in the mornings, and this is partly what can help us with that get-up-and-go feeling. We can use this to our advantage too: Morning work-outs might be more productive for muscle-building work-outs, and may also help keep a good circadian rhythm. In the afternoon - when testosterone is relatively lower - that might be a better time for mobility work, since we know that testosterone does impact ligament rigidity.
Q: Is there anything else you’d like to share that often surprises athletes?
There's so much we wish we knew about how hormonal cycles affect our performance, but there is such a bias in the research towards male athletes! The small female-based studies that are out there (what a lot of my class is based on) are really small studies on 7-10 athletes on one team, and usually are only done over a single months' cycle.
A lot of them conclude something like "grip strength doesn't differ between the luteal and follicular phases". But I think every female athlete will tell you that they feel different in different phases! So taking what we know about hormones and putting it into the context of how we feel is so important. It's really why I put this course together, and I hope it's going to be really helpful for athletes and trainers to do a deep dive into options for training around our cycles!
Here are my key takeaways from talking with Dr. Ohlinger:
Developing your sense of how your body is feeling is the most powerful tool you can build as an athlete.
Everyone benefits from times of higher training intensity followed by times of lower intensity, so embrace this and use the weeks you feel off as a time to back off training and rejuvenate. (I train most of my clients to build in workouts and mileage for 3 weeks, and then take 1 “down” week - try a structure like that to fit into your cycle).
Don’t skimp on good nourishment during your period - try to get enough iron and a balance of whole foods - including plant or animal protein, fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grain carbohydrates, and unsaturated fats.
No two people are the same, so when considering taking a training tip from a friend or teammate, experiment with it and ask yourself, “Will this work for me?”
Resources to learn more about athletic training and your period:
Dr. Ohlinger’s course: Bleed Like a Badass
ROAR by Dr. Stacy Sims
Try a period tracking app like Flo
