There is a lot of noise out there about cycle syncing.
If you’re unsure of what it is, cycle syncing is a practice in which you modify your diet, exercise, and personal life to align with your menstrual cycle.
Now, I do not want anyone to think I’m bashing other women on how they support their bodies. If someone feels their absolute best doing this, great. I would never take that away from someone.
However, here at Dancers Who Lift, we are focused on the life of a performer. Performers lead very busy, very demanding lives.
It’s also not as if we have the luxury of canceling our shows or auditions for a week because we are PMSing. The same goes for adjusting choreography simply because it’s too high intensity for a certain time of the month.
Despite what the cycle syncing gurus suggest, changing your workouts throughout your cycle doesn’t align with much of the science-backed research surrounding strength and conditioning principles like the principle of progressive overload (gradually increasing your weight/reps over time as you get stronger).
Not to mention the fact that each menstruation cycle is different. Not everyone feels strongest during ovulation or their weakest during their luteal phase. What’s more is, month-to-month cycle symptoms can change, so where does that leave you when trying to sync up to your cycle phase needs?
However, we absolutely should discuss ways we can navigate our cycle as menstruating elite-performance athletes.
We want to teach you how to listen to and respect your body so you can reach your goals no matter where you are in your cycle.
If Not Cycle Syncing, How Do I Honor My Cycle While Training?
Just because we aren’t cycle syncing doesn’t mean you’re just plowing through without consideration for where you are in your cycle. Quite the opposite, actually.
Part of understanding your body as a person who menstruates is tracking your cycle.
Now, you might be thinking, “I track my cycle, I mark down when my period is due!”
That’s a great start! But tracking your cycle to more deeply understand your body and how to train it requires more detail than simply marking down when you’ll get your period.
Tracking with this intention requires a little bit more effort. You’ll track each day how your mood is, what your flow or cervical mucus is like, and if you had a headache or cramps. You’ll track whether or not you felt anxious or depressed, or confident and strong.
Once you start tracking this information you might see why cycle syncing became a popular concept. The amount of patterns you can find within your body’s cycle can be quite illuminating, and matching up workouts to these patterns might be tempting. But as we stated earlier, this type of training isn’t practical for performance athletes.
You can track these symptoms in an app, a journal, or calendar.
So, Now That You’re Tracking, Let’s Talk Workouts.
Scientific studies show that while females self-reported feeling like physical performance suffers during their luteal phase and menstruation (pre-period and period), there isn’t sufficient data to show that physical performance actually declines.
So, even though you might feel tired and sluggish while PMSing, you’re still performing with strength and power.
That doesn’t mean that you don’t listen to your body. There are a lot of hormonal changes happening in your body throughout your cycle.
Studies have shown that women are more likely to sustain an injury during ovulation due to the swift hormonal fluctuations during that week. And, according to this study, female athletes were six times more likely to sustain an injury during their luteal phase than during any other part of their cycle.
Pushing through pain, exhaustion, or brain fog can lead to injury no matter who you are. Pushing through those things while your body is also physically depleted? A definite risk.
And while we don’t recommend cycle syncing by changing the style of your workouts, we do recommend being mindful and making adjustments when necessary. This is why knowing your body is SO important. Keeping track of symptoms from cycle to cycle will help you get a grasp of how mild or intense your symptoms are and how you can best adjust your training.
Adjusting Your Training Might Look Like:
Swap Your Workout Days:
For example, let’s say in your program it’s leg day but you’re cramping. Swap your leg day for upper body day to prevent additional fatigue in your lower body.
This is the quickest way to adjust. And here’s where tracking comes in: knowing how you tend to feel day-to-day throughout your cycle will help you make informed swaps.
Another example: I am hyper-mobile.
I learned with my physical therapist that, a couple of days before my period, my cervical spine tends to slip out of place. To avoid a neck spasm, I avoid upper body workouts the day before and after I get my period. Instead, I focus on lower body and cardio those days.
Lower the Intensity:
Whether you are swapping workouts around to adjust for other cycle symptoms or not, consider lowering the intensity of your workout.
This looks like adjusting the weight, rep ranges, or rest times. Remember, something is always better than nothing, so just because you are lightening your load a bit (literally) doesn’t mean you aren’t making progress, those muscle groups are still getting worked!
Allow Your Rate of Perceived Effort (RPE) To Change:
A well-constructed training program should give you recommendations for how hard you should feel you are working during a set.
It’s usually a scale of 0-10 indicating easy/no effort (0) to your failure point (10). Let’s say your trainer has recommended your RPE be between 6-7.
The week before ovulation a 6-7 might be a 180lb deadlift. A little later into your cycle, you might find that a 150lb deadlift gives you the same 6-7 RPE. This is normal, okay, and a great way to continue training while respecting your body’s fluctuation.
What About Cycle Syncing Food?
If you’re in spaces like Instagram, TikTok, or other social media sites you’ve probably seen the videos of women showing off their “luteal phase latte” or seed cycling nutrition.
Once again, I find myself saying, that if you track your cravings with your cycle, you might find that your body is consistently asking for what it needs.
Some research suggests that our resting metabolic rate increases in the luteal phase. That suggests that it requires more energy (calories) for our bodies to simply exist during this time of our cycle.
Other scientific research has shown that during the luteal phase, there is an increase in cravings for chocolate, sweets, and salty foods.
Putting this information together can be a powerful tool to combat any hesitation to listen to your body’s hunger cues.
As far as cycle syncing your food? Our bodies function best when they are well-hydrated and adequately fueled. And the truth is well-balanced macros support healthy hormones.
Protein assists in the production of estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone. All hormones that are necessary for regulating a healthy menstrual cycle.
Fats are also a building block for estrogen and progesterone and therefore play a big role in regulating female sex hormones.
Carbs can be a sensitive subject. There is so much noise about low-carb diets and cutting carbs to lose weight. But, for our discussion today let’s focus on how low-carb diets can negatively affect your hormonal health.
When someone restricts their carb intake, they restrict their energy intake as a whole. As a result, our body turns down the production of certain sex hormones as a protective mechanism.
Think about it—if you’re not eating, your body gets the signal that there’s not enough food in your environment to sustain a pregnancy. Therefore, your body will dial back the hormones that help make pregnancy happen (whether or not you are trying to get pregnant or not.)
So What Does This All Mean?
Our bodies thrive on consistency. Maintaining a consistent diet that your body can rely on will ultimately be the best way to support your hormonal cycle.
Work with a trainer, nutritionist, or doctor to find the ideal macro balance for your body. Once you’ve found this, try and remain as consistent as possible. A balanced diet will yield balanced hormones.
Wrapping it Up
Ultimately, Cycle Syncing might not be the best option for performance athletes. However, there are a lot of ways to support your cycle while training as an elite dancer.
This article merely scratches the surface of what you can learn about your cycle and how to support it.
Diving deeper can lead to a deep understanding of how your individual body works. This understanding holds great power.
Suddenly you aren’t a salve to the symptoms of your cycle. Instead, you’ll be collaborating with your own body, listening to what it needs and responding accordingly.
You’ll be amazed how your body responds when it feels like its needs are being met. Goals will be within reach. Rest will be prioritized. And you’ll feel stronger and more powerful than ever.
That’s why we are happy to announce, Dance With the Flow, a new science-backed program led by Coach Kierstin. This program is designed to walk alongside you as you dive into understanding your period and what working with your body looks like.
You’ll get nutritional guidance, training recommendations, and an in-depth education about what is happening in your body during each phase of your menstrual cycle.
Sign up, here and join the other dancers ready to harness the power of their menstrual cycle transforming their cycle into a source of strength!
Want more fitness tips for dancers? Read the latest on the DWL blog here: Should dancers drink daily greens?, Oh My, Quad! A Quad Workout for Dancers, Practicing Emotional Self Care: Common Mistakes High Performance Humans Make