Dr. Lauren Colenso-Semple

That said, most people experience them for one or two days.

So we're only talking about skipping or adjusting

one, maybe two workouts.

So I don't feel that strongly about it either way.

I think, you know, it's up to you.

And like I said, there will be a variety of reasons within any given month why we show up to the gym and we don't feel our best.

And some of those days, again, for a variety of reasons, we might decide to make some adjustments and other days we might just decide to push through and both are completely acceptable.

The majority of these studies are on folks taking combined oral contraceptive pills.

So this wouldn't apply to something like a hormonal IUD or there's a patch that people are using now that it's a more modern take.

But there is enough data at this point to say when it comes to strength, hypertrophy, power, we're not seeing combined oral contraceptive pills move the needle in either direction.

And there were...

appropriate hypotheses to say, oh, maybe this could be detrimental or maybe this could be beneficial.

But what we see similar to the influence of the endogenous hormone fluctuations, which are quite substantial, if those aren't affecting performance or exercise-induced adaptations, it's not that shocking that the hormonal contraceptives wouldn't move the needle to a great extent either.

That's right.

I would say if you're just starting a contraceptive pill, some people have symptoms and side effects, some of which are kind of attenuated over time and some of which are not, and you need to switch to something else.

So you might, for a short term, because that pill is not a good fit for you, then there could be some short-term influence in that sense.

But

On the flip side, a lot of people go on a hormonal contraceptive because they have really severe menstrual symptoms.

And then that can be helpful in relieving that pain.

And so then you might be willing to go to the gym more frequently during the week where you have your menstrual period.