Lack of Knowledge Series: Respecting Your Cycle
Have you ever had a week where your workouts felt amazing, your energy was high, and your motivation was through the roof — only to find that two weeks later everything felt harder, slower, and more exhausting?
If this sounds familiar, don’t worry — you’re not alone.
Hosea 4:6 says, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” In today’s world, which is overflowing with information about women’s health, hormones, and fitness, many women still feel confused about how to train effectively throughout their monthly cycle.
I’ve been a coach for over 20 years and have coached many women of various ages and at many stages in life. Through that experience, I’ve gained a strong understanding of how the female menstrual cycle can affect training and have learned how to support each individual throughout their fitness journey.
I’m going to show you how to respect your cycle and progress on your fitness journey in this blog. As you read this blog, ask yourself these three questions:
- When do I feel strongest during the month?
- When do I tend to struggle most with motivation?
- Are there patterns I’ve noticed but never connected to my cycle?
Below is a simple breakdown of the two main phases of the menstrual cycle, along with some of the common physical and emotional changes women may experience during each phase.
The Follicular Phase (When Your Body Feels Ready to Fly)
This phase starts on the first day of your period and lasts until ovulation. During this phase, estrogen levels gradually rise. Estrogen is a hormone that plays a major role in energy levels, mood, recovery, and overall performance. As estrogen increases, many women notice:
- Better energy
- Improved mood
- Stronger training sessions
- Better recovery
- Increased motivation
Estrogen can support better insulin sensitivity, meaning the body becomes more efficient at using carbohydrates for fuel rather than simply storing them.
Your muscles are often better fuelled during this phase, which can make training feel stronger and more productive.
Recovery may also feel better. Sessions that would normally leave you feeling drained for several days may feel easier to bounce back from, allowing you to train with greater consistency and intensity.
Many women also notice improved focus and stress tolerance during this phase.
Training itself places stress on both the body and mind, but during the follicular phase, women often feel more capable of handling that stress. Lifts feel smoother, motivation is higher, and setbacks in training are less likely to feel emotionally overwhelming.
Instead of thinking: “I’ve lost strength.” Or “I’m failing.” The mindset is often: “Okay, let’s go again.” Confidence, energy, and resilience tend to feel higher during this phase, which is why many women describe this as the part of the month where training feels more enjoyable and productive.
The Luteal Phase (When Everything Suddenly Feels Harder)
While the follicular phase can often feel productive and energising, the luteal phase can feel very different for many women. I’ve lost count of the number of times a female client has said to me: “Coach, I don’t know what’s wrong with me this week. Last week I was smashing my workouts and now I feel exhausted.” Often, when we look at where she is in her cycle, everything starts to make sense. Nothing is wrong. Her body is simply responding to a different hormonal environment. During the luteal phase, progesterone levels rise. Progesterone is a hormone involved in preparing the body for a possible pregnancy, but it can also influence energy levels, appetite, recovery, sleep quality, and mood. As progesterone increases, many women report:
- lower energy
- increased fatigue
- bloating
- cravings
- poorer sleep
- reduced motivation
Training sessions that previously felt manageable may suddenly feel harder, even when fitness levels haven’t changed.
This is where many women can become frustrated with themselves unnecessarily. Temporary bloating may negatively affect body image. Lower energy may feel like laziness. A drop in performance may feel like a loss of progress. But in many cases, these feelings are simply reflecting the hormonal changes taking place within the body rather than an actual decline in fitness or ability. Understanding this is important because it allows women to respond with awareness rather than self-criticism. Instead of forcing maximal performance during this phase, the focus may shift towards:
- Consistency
- Recovery
- Sleep quality
- Managing stress
- Training intelligently rather than emotionally
This doesn’t mean training stops. It simply means expectations and recovery strategies may need to adjust slightly during this phase of the cycle.
Managing Your Wellbeing Throughout Your Cycle
Understanding your cycle is not about avoiding training or making excuses.
It is about learning how to work with your body rather than constantly fighting against it.
Both phases of the menstrual cycle can affect training, recovery, stress levels, sleep, mood, and overall wellbeing in different ways. The key is learning how to manage those changes without becoming overwhelmed or discouraged by them. During the luteal phase especially, it becomes even more important to focus on the foundations:
- staying hydrated
- eating properly
- maintaining healthy sleep patterns
- recovering well between sessions
- managing stress levels
One mistake many women make during this phase is under-eating because of temporary bloating. However, reducing food intake unnecessarily can often make fatigue, mood, recovery, and training performance feel even worse.
Your body still needs fuel! This is also where spiritual discipline becomes extremely important. Prayer, reading the Word, quiet time with God, breath work, stretching, and creating moments of stillness can all help bring the mind and body back into alignment during a phase where emotions, stress, and self-perception may feel heightened.
These practices should already be part of daily life, but during the luteal phase they become even more important because they help keep you grounded rather than allowing temporary feelings to control your thoughts. It becomes easier during this phase to focus on everything you think is going wrong: how you look, how you feel, how training is going, temporary drops in energy or performance, but those feelings do not always reflect reality. In actual fact many women are still progressing extremely well during this phase, even if they do not feel their best emotionally or physically in that moment.
This is exactly why knowledge matters.
When we don’t understand what’s happening in our bodies, we can become discouraged, frustrated, and unnecessarily critical of ourselves.
But when knowledge is paired with wisdom, we can respond with grace, patience, and better decisions. In many ways, the menstrual cycle can be compared to turbulence during a flight (this might sound very male, but stay with me). Before turbulence arrives, the pilot prepares you for it with an announcement (your bodies do the same). The turbulence does not mean the plane is failing. It does not mean the journey is over. It simply means conditions have or are about to change temporarily. The same can be said during different phases of the menstrual cycle. When you understand what is happening physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, you are far less likely to panic during difficult moments. So, Instead of becoming discouraged, you can stay grounded, stay consistent, and continue moving forward knowing that the turbulence will pass.
As always this is Coach Ed saying, “Train Hard, Eat Right, Sleep Good!”
