3 Mistakes most personal trainers make with hormone balance

Fitness Coach, by the end of this post you’ll know how to avoid 3 of the most common mistakes personal trainers make when it comes to hormone balance & 3 ways you can support your client’s hormone balance within your scope of practice!

My name is Omega Zumpano, I am exercise scientist and menstrual cycle educator and this is just one of my clients who has gained more muscle, cleared her skin and improved digestion just using fitness, nutrition and lifestyle aligned with her menstrual cycle.

So let’s dive in…

#1 No cycle tracking:

The number 1 mistake personal trainers make is not tracking your female client’s period. It’s important to understand when your female client’s period is because during that 3-7 days the hormones estrogen and testosterone are the lowest they will ever be during her period. And regardless how strong or how much of a beast your client is, hormones estrogen and testosterone just aren’t at levels that will help her heal and grow her muscle tissue or metabolize fat, two of the most common fitness goals out there. On top of that. If you don’t know whether or not she’s menstruating during a training session, you run the risk of depleting her, actually setting her further back in her goals.

The simple fix for this is to ask in your initial assessment (or even in your next monthly assessment) when her period usually starts, how many days it takes for her to have her next period, and if she is regular. Average period length is about 28 days. Your client may be every 24 or even 32 days though! If her period occurs in regular intervals, you are then empowered to predict when her period is coming and adjust her training accordingly.

#2: Cyclical Periodization

The second mistake is not periodizing your client’s workouts. Now I have a great video on cyclical workout periodization here. But whether or not you already do workout periodization with your clients or whether or not you plan to, it's important to female hormone balance that you’re working out in different ways throughout the cycle. And if you know when your client’s period is, that makes this process super easy!

Here’s a brief way to periodize your female client’s workout program:
-Bleed Phase - reduce overall intensity
After you know she’s out of her bleed phase, do high reps, lower weight, increase rest time. The hormones that help her muscles recover are still lower, so doing high rep, lower weight, lower intensity workouts are best for this phase.
-About 2 weeks after she starts her period put her through a higher intensity work load, or push her to her max.
-After 5 days to one week, decrease overall training volume by about 30%.
-A week before her period, decrease training volume another 20% and emphasize low intensity long duration cardio.

#3: Assessing at the right time:

Most personal trainers aren’t taking a client’s optimal assessment time into consideration. As personal trainers, we take assessments monthly, if not weekly. So if your client has strength or even weight loss goals, wouldn’t you like to show her that progress at the most optimal time for her hormones?

The most optimal time to check for progress is in her ovulatory phase, about 2 weeks from the first day of her period. The reason to take assessments in the ovulatory phase is:

Since estrogen and testosterone are peaking during this time, your client has more strength capacity. If your assessment involves lifting she will be stronger in this phase
Your client has a lower BMR. Since her BMR is lower, she is going to have a decreased appetite, so she’ll actually probably eat less around this time as well. With less food volume in her stomach, she is also going to weigh less too!
Your client has more confidence in this phase of her cycle. Estrogen and testosterone are highest, giving her a glow. Wouldn’t you like to reflect to your client how bad ass and confident she is?

If you are a personal trainer who wants to learn how to use cyclical fitness in order to get your client’s to their goals faster and more sustainably, apply for the Confident Menstrual Cycle Coaching Academy. The process is simple, all you have to do is use this link to book your application call. On our call, I’ll ask you a few application questions to make sure you’re a fit for the program, and I have to be real with you, not everyone is a fit for the program. But if it sounds like you are, I’ll tell you more about the program and how it all works and you and I can decide if working together is a fit for both of us. Apply using this link.