3 mistakes I made as a personal trainer who didn’t know about hormones
Most of us, personal trainers went through ACE, NASM , or ISSA certification process and those are the basic knowledge to become a personal trainer. But we all know why we are required to get continued education…because our cert is just basic and a lot of what we’re taught in those certifications actually come from research that has been done on men.
If you want to watch instead of read, click this link to be taken to the YouTube video on this topic!
But finally there is valid research being done on women’s fitness and how nutrition inter-play with menstrual cycle fitness and I think that’s really cool and so this post is going to be about the mistakes I made as a trainer that just did not serve female clients in retrospect.
If you don’t know me yet my name is Omega Zumpano. I am an exercise, scientist, menstrual cycle, educator and founder of one of the first menstrual cycle, health fitness and nutrition certifications. I have a free webinar out right now that goes over my method of how Personal Trainer‘s can assess, address and correct and optimize hormonal balance. If you want to learn more about how to do that, click this link to watch the free webinar.
Mistake #1: Calories, baby
The first thing that I did wrong was I put women on a calorie deficit plan in hopes that they would lose weight and they always would. But the problem with this in terms of hormone health is this:
It impacts gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRh) via the enzyme kisspeptin. Kisspeptin is created in the brain. Hormone balance generally starts in the brain, ovaries and gut. All those systems send messages back-and-forth via the vagus nerve. When if (GnRh) is impacted, so is luteinizing hormone (LH). LH is the hormone that tells our estrogen to increase and for us to ovulate.
SO! When we’re on a calorie deficit, our body actually doesn’t *always* send those hormone messengers to cause ovulation. In extreme cases of calorie deficit we don’t do that at all and if you saw my other YouTube video, you know how calorie deficit impacts hormone balance FULLY!
Mistake #2: Fitness & Nutrition Optimization
Number 2 mistake is that I accounting for the fact that: hormone chemistry impacts fitness capacity and nutritional need. If you watched any of my other YouTube videos, you know that I talk a lot about how hormones impact recovery, as well as the macro & micro nutrients needs. And how glucose oxidation and fat oxidation change throughout the cycle. In the ovulatory and follicular phase when we’re using glucose really well then we can do exercises that require more glucose and glycogen from us (hello HIIT).
In the luteal phase when we are not high in estrogen and testosterone, and have more progesterone, which is catabolic. And it just so happens that we metabolize fat a little bit better in this phase.
I wasn’t optimizing exercise to match my clients hormonal profile at different times of the month. I think that’s a lot of what us coaches run into. We don’t know how to optimize exercise & nutrition for female hormones when we’re not taught! Many of us were taught this no pain no gain mentality (or at least our clients have been). But at what cost are we negatively impacting female hormone health?
Mistake #3: Recovery / Deload &
The third mistake I made is making recovery / deload days the exact same for every single client all the time. I now know that recovery days should change with our menstrual cycle. When our hormones are the lowest, as they are in our menstrual phase, we have less capacity to heal and grow muscle tissue. So why would we train hard / harder here?
The same thing is true for the late luteal phase right before we start our period - hormones are the lowest in those two phases. That being said, doesn’t it make sense that that those days should be de-loading / recovery / flexibility days?
Again that is not taught to us is trainers! But these are all things that I know teach in the fitness portion of my menstrual cycle, health nutrition, and fitness certification
When we think about periodization, we wouldn’t typically do the same volumes week over week. This is no different. We’re just incorporating female hormone optimization in the mix! Does that mean we can’t perform well in the luteal phase? Absolutely not. It means that in terms of training for goals and performance our hormones can be optimized!
Apply for the Academy
Looking to become confident and educated on how to optimize and balance your client’s hormones so that you can serve your client’s more effectively? Apply for the Confident Menstrual Cycle Coach Academy HERE.