Balanced Female Athlete Health – The positive performance impact of a healthy menstrual cycle

HPSNZ Head of Performance Physiology Caroline MacManus says the menstrual cycle can be seen as a performance inhibitor but, in fact, a healthy cycle will have a positive wellbeing and performance impact.

“The key for athletes is to understand what a healthy menstrual cycle is for them because what you feel and experience in relation to your menstrual cycle can be very different for different women,” Caroline says.

Caroline explains that a healthy menstrual cycle and its hormones (EPIC – estrogen and progesterone in cycle) have benefits that span far beyond their importance for reproductive health.

“These hormones are long term actors. Their positive influence builds cycle on cycle and year on year starting in puberty and progressing through your 20s and 30s, building your capacity and resilience across many body systems.”

Menstrual cycle hormones can contribute to:

• Cardiovascular and immune health
• Brain development, cognition and mood
• Digestion, hydration and metabolism
• Growth, development and repair of bone, nerves, muscle, ligaments and tendons.

“That is a big incentive for any female athlete to undertake a journey of self-discovery in relation to their menstrual cycle,” Caroline says. “Finding what’s normal for you empowers you with self-knowledge and opportunities to take control, inform decisions and positively impact your performance.”

One athlete who can speak first hand about her journey of self-discovery is Olympian Jaime Nielsen.

She describes the journey as “empowering”.

“We want to perform. This opens the door to some of those marginal gains that can help us get to the next level,” she says.

“When I first started out as an athlete, I was aware of my cycle, but I wasn’t fully aware of how it would impact my performance.

“When I started to see the patterns in my performance in relation to my cycle, that was hugely empowering because those were things I could work on myself and try to improve.

“The self-ownership piece for me was a real gamechanger, when I really tuned into what I was feeling and fully connected with my body.”

Having been through her own journey and knowing what she knows now, Jaime’s advice to other athletes is to reflect on and harness their own patterns, understand what is normal for them and then to make use of the support staff available to them.

You can hear more of Jaime’s story here.

To hear more from Caroline MacManus about the benefits of a healthy menstrual cycle, check out this edition of Rowing NZ’s ‘Rowers Kōrero’ podcast.

Next month we will be exploring other female health issues that can impact performance. Watch out for two new athlete stories which harness their critical conversations and learnings.