Written by Audrey S. Geyer
Tempdrop wasn’t just made for trying to achieve or avoid pregnancy. It was also created to help you get insight on our fertility and health for life!
Here’s a little known secret: Tempdrop can even help you get more out of your fitness routine!
As a health-conscious woman, you’re likely already spending time in the gym, yoga studio, running, or exercising at home. If you want to learn how to train smarter, recover better, and feel your best, then check out these tips to elevate your workouts by understanding your cycle!
Menstruation
As your cycle begins, both estrogen and progesterone are low. You might feel low on energy during this time or experience period pain. The most important thing to consider about exercise during menstruation is how your body feels and what it needs. Many women need extra rest. Especially if you have a heavy period, you might benefit from avoiding intense exercise.
Light exercise, such as yoga, Pilates, taking a walk, or going for a jog, can help ease menstrual cramps and reduce stress.
If you’re an athlete or have been training intensely, focus on improving your recovery during the first few days of your cycle. Getting a therapeutic massage can help with lymphatic drainage, reducing water retention, and soothing sore muscles. Home-based recovery tools like foam rollers, massage guns, and red light devices can also be especially beneficial!
Follicular Phase & Ovulation
When estrogen starts rising after your period ends, a lot begins to change! You're right in the middle of the follicular phase. Estrogen is an anabolic hormone, which means it’s a growth hormone! With amazing muscle-building capabilities and more energy to conquer the day with, you’ll want to start picking up the intensity in your workouts during this time.
If you enjoy classes like cycle, dance cardio, HIIT, or going for long runs, this is the time when your body is going to get the most benefits from it!
Weight training with a focus on progressive overload (gradually increasing the weight used) is an amazing way that you can use your hormones to your advantage and increase your metabolism! By challenging your body to work harder and harder, then giving it adequate rest and fuel by eating plenty of protein, healthy fats, and carbohydrates, you’ll build more lean muscle.
Muscle is an incredibly expensive tissue for your body to maintain, meaning it costs a lot of calories. When you build muscle, your body burns more food as fuel. Rather than taking the outdated “workout more, eat less” approach, which will actually slow down your metabolism to conserve calories, weight training increases muscle so that your body burns more even while you rest.
As you approach ovulation, make sure you’re using the correct form for the exercise you’re performing. Most injuries occur during right around ovulation because estrogen increases the flexibility in tendons and ligaments, so warming up and being mindful of alignment will help prevent injuries.
Luteal Phase
After ovulation, in the luteal phase, your temperature rises due to a rise in progesterone. This increases your body’s natural thermogenesis. Progesterone is also a natural diuretic, so dehydration is more likely to occur during this phase.
If you’re an athlete, electrolytes during the luteal phase should be a priority for taking care of your body!
In the luteal phase, you’re more sensitive to stress, including stress from lots of intense cardio. This stress can lead to spikes in cortisol. When cortisol rises, it also increases your blood sugar and can lead to moodiness, poor sleep, and poor recovery.
Instead of taking a HIIT class, try yoga or Pilates to activate your muscles and increase your core strength. Instead of running, go for a walk for cardiovascular health. Strength train with adequate rest between sets. You don’t have to leave your workout sweaty and out of breath for it to be effective!
With increased thermogenesis and muscle-building exercise, your body doesn’t need a lot of intense cardio to reap the benefits of a great workout.
Taking a cyclical approach to exercise - and using Tempdrop to help you track your changes - can help you achieve the results you desire while reducing stress and pain, increasing your metabolism, and improving your mood!
Audrey is a High Performance Women's Wellness Coach based in Memphis, TN, working virtually with clients both across the United States and internationally. Leaving nothing unintentional or uninspired, she is a go-to source for women's health, personal development, and lifestyle strategy for ambitious, health-conscious women. She has a fresh perspective on what it means to live a balanced life and coaches women on how to achieve their goals, while making PMS and burnout a thing of the past.
You can find her on Instagram or her website.