What is Female Phase Training? Part 1

Up until now, women have been trained as if they were small men, and most studies up until recently were conducted solely on men.

Thank heavens though now research is coming out on how we can best train women and their unique physiology, because guess what? you're made pretty different to a bloke.

So based on a women's hormonal shifts that occur throughout her menstrual cycle, we can alter her training program in order to get the best out of her and work with her hormones not against them.

This approach is obviously going to be very personal on the individual in front of you but non-the-less very important.

We can dive into a women's menstrual cycle another time, but to keep things short, Female Phase Training or FPT is a way to take advantage of the hormonal fluctuations over the cycle in order to maximise her training. The distinct changes in Estrogen and Progesterone (the female sex hormones impact your mood, energy levels, appetite, fuel utilisation and performance. So let's take bloody advantage of this!!!!

You can alter your nutritional protocols to match these fluctuations, and customise and individualise your training based on all of this data.

This brings me to a big point that is, without tracking your cycle, you're not giving yourself the data with which to work from, which isn't the be all and end all, but definitely helps. You can always go off 'feel', you're most likely going to have your best energy around ovulation so if you're feeling particularly fantastic then use your body awareness to go smash the workout that day.

Exercise should enhance your lift, not take away from it and definitely not be a punishment, it should be enjoyed as much as possible. By utilising FPT you can alter your approach to your exercise to get the most out of it and work with how you're feeling. For example as a women enters the late-luteal phase, she is most likely going to have less energy, have greater food cravings, experience PMS symptoms, so you naturally have a de-load week planned for you, take a step back, go lighter on the weights, maybe do some yoga and more gently movement.

When you are ovulating in the middle of your cycle is when you will have most energy, due to the rise in estrogen, and this is the most advantageous time to hit some PBs in your training, so if your program isn't accounting for this then you could be fighting an uphill battle.

In part 2, I will go into more specific details on what happens during your cycle, how can expect to feel and how we can utilise this to get the most out of our training.

See you soon x