Dr. Stacy Sims

And because women have different hormones than men,

as far as what's predominant and when they are, we have to come at this and approach it a different way.

I think it's important that, you know, building muscle, using muscle consistency is a huge part of effectiveness when it comes to exercise or to building strength.

And so one fear we have when we say do this in one phase of your cycle and do that in another phase is that if, you know, 15% of patients are not ovulating or they have no idea when their follicular and luteal phases are, are they then doing overall less because they're waiting on this directive to tell them what?

What is not untrue, though, and how I frame this to patients is that strength and resistance training should be the core of what you're doing, regardless of the phase of the cycle you're in, regardless if you're pregnant, regardless if we're doing fertility treatments, building muscle, using your muscle.

Now, what you do on other days is where you should allow yourself to say, how do I feel this day?

What do I need this day?

And be OK with giving yourself the grace that that may look different.

on your period, in your follicular phase, in your luteal phase, and saying doing something and moving your body is still ultimately, we're all going to agree, better than sitting on the couch.

Many women will say they have more energy in that late follicular phase.

And so if you are looking at your workout structure, this is a day I want to try heavier weights or more reps.

It can be smart to put that in a time where you have a higher chance of being successful.

That's how I explain it.

I'm like, if you have...

Because estrogen is rising.

Yeah, exactly.

And you see the physiologic changes, heart rate variability, resting heart rate.

When that follicle ruptures and the egg is released, the granulosa cells that are surrounding it, which is what actually makes estrogen, get disrupted.

And so some women feel that transient breakage and their estrogens dropping before it reforms to become the corpus luteum and make again.

So you have this...