How does menstruation affect the muscle performance? We still know surprisingly little.

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We know surprisingly little about the effects that natural hormonal fluctuations have on muscle performance or what happens to those cycles—and our health—when we work out.
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Halfway through training for my first marathon this past summer, I lost my period.
I wasn’t that surprised. It had happened before, once at the beginning of college and again in my early 20s. Each came at a time when I increased my athletic endeavors, but what surprised me most were the seesawing opinions of the medical professionals I told: One was extremely concerned, another not at all, and the third gave me the answer that inspired this article: “I don’t think we really know what the effects are yet.” How can that be?
Today, more women than ever participate in sports. As Mother  Jones points out, in 1972, just 1 in 27 high school girls participate in sports. As of 2012, 2 in 5 girls did. Yet we know little about the effects that natural hormonal fluctuations have on muscle performance or what happens to those cycles—and our health—when we work out.
This lack of research effort is surprising given that period pain in relation to performance is a frequent discussion topic among female athletes. But it’s one discussed among friends, in private discussions and group chats. That lack of information makes it difficult for anyone with a period to understand how it affects their body every month. More research is slowly emerging, but it’s been a long road.
Some of the earliest rigorous studies done on muscle performance took placein the 1940s, 50s, and 60s, and they generally excluded women, assuming that men were easier to analyze precisely because researchers (incorrectly) assumed they didn’t have significant  hormonal cycles. It was also assumed, somewhat contradictorily, that they could easily serve as a proxy for women. That meant up until the last few decades, little to no research existed on how a woman’s monthly hormonal cycle affected her muscular or overall athletic performance. Studies on the topic are still scarce, but researchers have begun to draw some conclusions based on the early results.
In an idealized 28-day menstrual cycle, the first phase (days one to 14) features an increase in estrogen production. At day 14, ovulation occurs, and estrogen production wanes while production of the hormone progesterone increases. If conception doesn’t occur, progesterone levels fall, menstruation starts, and everything repeats.
What effect these hormonal fluctuations have on muscle performance is far from clear. (▪ ▪ ▪)

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