Hormonal changes that occur during the menstrual cycle do not affect the physical performance of menstruating people, contrary to what is often claimed by scientists who automatically exclude women from exercise research.
A US study from Brigham Young University, published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, found that women’s athletic performance was just as consistent as men’s.
To this day, most exercise advice relates almost exclusively to men. Female subjects are excluded from more than 90% of studies on exercise performance and fatigue.
Although participants often told the researchers that their menstrual cycles affected their mood and performance expectations, their measured results showed “absolutely no change.”
“Women with regular cycles had the same results between the high estrogen phase, the high progesterone phase and during menstruation when both levels are low,” said Jessica Linde, who led the study. This information removes a major barrier. It shows that we shouldn’t exclude women from research because they think their menstrual cycles are confounding the results.”
“Motion research has long assumed that women are like men, only smaller,” says study co-author Jayson Gifford. Our study suggests that this is not the case and that there are important differences between women’s and men’s training. Involving more women in the research will allow us to refine approaches to female physiology.”